i think we may have figured out our problem or at least 90% sure we have. Today we put motor on True TDC. Rotor was where it needed to be. Took distributor out. Found that one of my springs when i took it off had a small gap in its coils. That’s probably because one of us man handled the spring last weekend and was prob too aggressive with screwdriver. This time i used my hands and replaced the bad spring. So i knew then that spring had something to do with my bad timing numbers. Drop distributor in and like before the motor sounded good but the RPMs i was showing on my tach did not feel right as my ears were doing a better job. Tach was showing 3000 RPM with my foot on pedal but i knew it was not that high. About the time thermostat opened, my foot still on pedal in same spot, the tach then just goes down to 1500 with to much play too in the needle for me.. Put timing light on there and it all jacked up. So disabled the tach, put a different tach on there, and that tach was spot on. First numbers we got were: Base-12, 3000-25, 4000-25. So i knew it was not advancing. Did not want to take it up to 5000RPM cuz i figured if it did not change from 3000-4000 then it was not going to change anymore. So we up my base time and advance it 10 degrees. At 3000 RPM I now have 35 degrees. Sooooo, i hope we've fixed our problem. On saturday we going to take the tach off car and rig it up on our test motor. I’d assume its not going to work or do its job but want to see. That tach is an Autometer Sport Comp Monster w/push button display and shift setting for shift light on it. The spare tach i used today was just a cheapo so i may be in for having to buy a new tach. So now i have more questions:

1. Other than what i did today with changing out the tach and in a few days taking that ‘bad’ tach and putting on my test motor to test, i reckon that’s the only way to test if tach is bad that i know of. I don’t think there is anything on the car that could have been bad to make the autometer give false readings, right? that cheapo tach i put on there for testing, worked like it was supposed to.

2. Getting back to timing, i’m going to put timing light on there again on Saturday and make sure car starts up on cold, hot, etc. The last time we adjusted it to advance it and give me 35 at 3000, i forgot to shine light on there for base time. On paper though, i’d think i’d be running about 20 degrees. I assume that’s ok with a high performance motor right?