Thread: camshaft for torque

Tweet

Boy, check the dates on this thread as from quite a while ago. And yet I am replying to keep this thread going with some of Tech1's best work. Time does fly by but I note that it was only on 9/19/2012 that we actually fired my engine described above so maybe the Range Rover is still a work in progress. Since I am new to my present neighborhood I was unaware that less than a mile from my home on a back road there is Progressive Automotive (Ashland, Va) with Proprietor Mr. Chester Houtaling. He runs a complete engine shop including a dyno and it took me several years to eventually meet him. Anyway he visited my garage and helped me time an old points type distributor with a Pertronix kit which was the only distributor I could find to slip between my motor and the fiberglass Bebops firewall. Anyway I reread the great advice from Tech1 above and he recommends an initial timing of 12 degrees static. Chester Houtaling came up with 8 degrees on my engine with the mild cam and 1.5 rockers using 93 octane gas to start. Since then I have run 89 and 87 octane without any noticeable pinging. Boy, first gear of the 700R4 is really "sudden" even with a 3.55 rear but I may have to go to a smaller rear tire size to get the OD to kick in at 55 mph. Sooo, my only question here is to note that my Chiltons Spec book for a 1976 Corvette lists 6 degrees for the lowly L-48 165 HP motor but 12 degrees for the L-82 205 HP motor. I had some overheating problems which were finally traced to a blockage in the Walker Cobra radiator but now I am running a 180 degree thermostat (in winter air) in a Zip Riser water pump unit. So far no problem with the flat tappet cam. Chester and I ran in the cam at 2000 rpm for 20 minutes with the 8 degrees and the vacuum advance blocked off using Joe Gibbs breakin oil. A leaking oil filter gasket caused a refill with Brad-Penn SAE30 with high ZDP for further breakin. I will switch to Amsoil-15-40 after 3000 miles. The question is maybe I should retune the initial timing to get the engine to run a little cooler or is 8 degrees in the "just right" range? There is a guy in Ashland (unknown to me) without a garage who is doing a body-off restoration of a Range Rover in his side yard and a number of people are rooting for him to make progress while we pass him by seeing the bare bones on sawhorses. Anyway I can't brag because my engine sat unfired almost seven years so it was a really good exerience to have it kick off in September. Thanks for the excellent discussion Tech1!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/Teen Rodder