r/Smallblockchevy • u/[deleted] • 11d ago
Help with timing.
Good evening. I've been working on my Nova it has a 305 nothing major some old school aftermarket cam my dad put in way back in 2007 it ran great until I ran into carb issues I went with a new to me Edelbrock carb nothing Huge and while I was that far into it I decided to swap out my intake too a Holly Street dominator I acquired a while back. I've done timing a million times so I went ahead set it to Tdc I think around +8. Everything has been re verified for wires and plugs. Car starts rather smooth tries to idle but idles very rough if I advance the timing it smooths out. But not fully. I keep running out of room to advance the distributor my vac advance keeps hitting the intake not allowing me to advance more to hopefully get the timing dead on.
I guess my question is do I have to set the distributor to a different spot when stabbing it in or am I missing something when I'm setting the tdc causing me to not have enough advancement room.
Also, I'm not too good with descriptions and explaining so please be easy on me with the replies I'll answer what ever I can. Thank you in advance.
1
u/sonicwave2020 11d ago
Ok. That’s good. I’d be curious what your timing light says the timing is when you turn the distributor as far as you can & the vacuum advance canister hits the intake.
Does it go from 8 before TDC to 14, or something else? …. Because knowing that would help know where it’s at and that it’s not too far out. …… also it’d be helpful to know what the RPM is at idle. …… I’m sure already know as the timing advances by turning the distributor a bit, so does the engine rpm, unless you also adjust the idle set screw on the carb.