Timing

[Hugh Mongus]

Originally Posted by piecesparts

What are you running for oil? If you are a little heavy on weight, there is some time involved in the oil building up to pressure.

Castrol 5w30. It's been colder than usual here the past few days. I didn't hear it when I went to lunch a little bit ago, and it's warmer outside than it was this morning. Perhaps, it was just the cold temps.

[cleszkie]

Originally Posted by Hugh Mongus

I went to Sears today and picked up an advance timing light. I turned the dial to 36 degrees, had my wife press the gas and hold it at 3000 rpms, and set the timing to 0 degrees. This left me with around 18-19 degrees initial timing. Since the advertised timing for a 350 is between 8-12 degrees, should this tell me anything?

I have no idea what's inside the engine. It has been idling rough, idling rich, and fouling plugs in a couple of cylinders. It runs great, but gets poor fuel economy.

A hotter camshaft will require more base timing and have a rougher idle characteristic than a stock grind cam. I run a mild street cam that requires about 18 degrees of base timing. So you may have a performance cam in your engine. But sounds like you have some other tuning issues as well.

[Hugh Mongus]

I found this handy spreadsheet for jets and rods.

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/gi...d/carb_jet.htm

[Hugh Mongus]

I appreciate all the information and feedback, but I have decided to get this motor rebuilt. It has other internal issues that are preventing me from getting it "right". It has started to burn oil and smoke from the left side. I drove it about 50 miles yesterday and it lost a pint of oil. So, rather than dumping more money into it to patch this and that, I am just going to get it fixed. Then I will know what I have, and will be able to maintain it properly.