Thread: Heads Up !!! Timing pointers on sbc 305 and 350 are in different positions.

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I just went thru a near melt down trying to set the timing on the 305 engine (1985) in my roadster pickup. When I pulled the engine fom the donor car, I decided to put a new timing chain and sprockets on it before cleaning it up and painting it. The old front cover was pretty scabby looking, so I bought a nice aftermarket chrome unit. After I installed it, I noticed that there was no timing pointer on it. Back to the speed shop I went, and bought a pretty chrome bolt on timing pointer, that bolted on using 2 of the front cover bolts. The part was advertised as "FITS ALL SMALL BLOCK CHEV ENGINES"----and it did-----and here the fun begins. I have been going nuts trying to set the timing on my engine, and it simply wasn't happening---when I got the engine to run right, the timing mark on the harmonic balancer wasn't even close to where it should be, when viewed with my timing light. When I turned the distributor to a point where the timing mark lined up correctly, the engine would puke and stall. I had that distributor in and out so many times that I just about lost my religion. Finally I appealed to my buddies on this forum, and Brant pointed out that the timing pointer on a 305 is directly above the centerline of the crankshaft at the 12:00 o'clock position, while the timing pointer on a 350 is at approximately the 1:30 position.---the bolt on timing pointer that I had purchased did indeed fit, but was correct only for a 350. Once I found this out, and reset my timing to the correct position the engine ran fine. I found top dead center on number one cylinder,coming up on compression, and painted a new timing mark on the harmonic balancer to correspond with my chrome (350) pointer. Now everything works great, and the new timing mark is right where it should be (about 12 degrees advance in my case) when viewed with the timing light.

Good call Brian. Actually there are three different balancers with the marks in different places and I have seen them all on both 305, 350 motors, depending on the year make and model. So yes they work with all small block chev's provided you have the right balancer.

i had the same problem with my gm 350 crate motor. with the balancer they said to use and the above mentioned pointer i was 4 degrees off. went back to the basics and figured it out as well. i feel your pain.