Thread: timing is everything!!!!

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Hello All...I have a 1947 Ford COE with a SBC. I did not do the swap but the previous owner did and he did a great job. However some of the work he did was very back yard pro so I have gone through all that I thought would fall off at 4000 RPM's which was the alt bracket and throttle return....he mixed the flathead ford bracket with SBC....little duck tape goes a long way. I'm now running an Alan Grove Alt bracket and a Lokar throttle set up. While doing some of these upgrades I replaced the intake manifold gasket along with the valve cover gaskets. Now comes the problem of timing...The truck runs but not great. I have pics of the motor before I touched it and new pics and the Vacuum advance canister is way off. Before it was at about 7 o'clock now its at 11 o'clock. I just don't know how it has manage to run well enough to drive the truck. While the car is running I tried adjust in the proper direction from 11 to 7 o'clock and the truck wants to die. If the truck dies and I try to restart it and I do not return the dist. to it's location of start up it will not fire and I get poping and all kinds of noises. through the carb. I'm not a mechanic buy any means so I'm at a loss....I'm going to try and time it tonight any thoughts on getting the dist in the right locating... Thanks

This has been addressed countless times on this board, Do a search on timing and you'll find threads that explain exactely how to time a small block..

Originally posted by Henry Rifle:

No offense intended here, but if you're not sure what it means to have the distributor off by a tooth, you may be in far enough over your head that some posts on a website might not explain it well enough for you. That's not bad on you. It just takes time and experience to do jobs like this.

Lets try going back to the basics.

First, buy a timing light. If you're going to tune a motor yourself, it's a must for the toolbox. Granted, you can time an engine with a vacuum gauge, but you have to buy one of those too. Also, you can tune a car by ear, but that takes experience. Finally, you can tune a car, but you can't Tuna Fish. (Sorry, I just HAD to do that.) Anyhow, here you go. Take this list and follow it step by step.

1. Pull the distributor.
2. Take out the #1 sparkplug.
3. Crank the engine clockwise with your finger over the sparkplug hole until you feel pressure pushing your finger away.
4. Continue turning the motor until the timing mark on the balancer aligns with the pointer. The motor is now at #1 TDC.
5. Put the distributor back in the motor without the cap. Make sure that the vacuum advance canister port is pointing to about 7 o'clock as you look down on the top of distributor from the front of the engine.
6. Check where the rotor is pointing, and put a little piece of tape or a magic marker stripe on the distributor housing.
7. Put the cap on the distributor.
8. The terminal directly above the mark will be number one.
9. Wire the cap 18436572 clockwise from that point.
10. Start the engine. If it doesn't want to start or kicks back, try slightly moving the distributor clockwise or counterclockwise.
11. Once you get it running, set the timing at about 10 BTDC.

If you don't understand this process, or it still won't run, get a buddy who is familiar with timing. Once you get the hang of it, it isn't hard.

Techinspector1 has it nailed, right on.---just one thing I will add. you can use the starter to turn the engine over untill you feel it blowing your finger off number 1 cyl, but be ABSOLUTELY SURE that the power feed to the coil is disconnected from the distributor---you don't want it to start and run on 7 cylinders with one plug out. As soon as you feel it blowing your finger off the plug hole, STOP. Put a 5/8" socket on the end of the crank pulley and use your ratchet or Johnson bar to turn the engine untill the timing mark on the harmonic balance lines up with the timing pointer. There just ain't no way that you will ever get it to line up by jogging the starter.