Reply to "Timing mark"

The FORD balancers all have markings from -10 to +30 or so.

A lot of people mark the flywheel through the rectangular bell house port and use that.

I would use George's instructions for setting the timing using a vacuum gauge and not worry about what the balancer says.

It will wind up as about 16 degrees initial at about 1,000 rpm. That's ABOUT what you want on it.

The tag on the fender that says 16 @1000 is there for a reason.

You can easily get it down to 750 or 800 rpm with a stock engine, but what will happen is that there will be a little sluggishness to it off of idle like the accelerator pump isn't working right.



I have mine down to 650 with this big cam and the Webers. It's the Webers that are allowing it and allowing a nice response to the accelerator pedal.

It does sound a lot like a speedboat at idle this way, but that's ok with me. It keeps everyone else guessing? The biggest problem is that it does cause havoc at stop lights because everyone is looking at the car to begin with. That's actually an effect of the sound of the 180 headers.

That actually causes a lot of other people to get speeding tickets. When the light changes they think that the "tree" just flashed green?
I try to ignore them all, but sometimes it's hard.



On an earlier car it might ping just a little that way because of the higher compression ratio, but not a lot.

I suspect that with your "customer", no matter what you do will cause some sort of criticism anyway? You need to start some where.


Setting the timing on a P is the biggest PITA you will NORMALLY find on the car.
I had a friend that would set it with the bulkhead cover off, driving the car. I would caution you on that as being extremely dangerous. For me, my right elbow is right there at the water pump pulley.

I use the vacuum gauge.