Super Six, Slant Six Timing

Heres what you do. Disconnect the Vcan for a long time. Reach down and crank some advance into it;forget the light for a sec. Just keep advancing it until the idle speed stops rising. If you run out of room on the advance slot fix it, reduce the idle back to the beginning,and continue with the advancment. As long as the idle rpm is increasing, the engine is telling you, she's liking it. Keep backing off the curb idle screw and adjusting the mixture screws as may be required.Now put a light on it, measure it, and write the number down.
Next, crank the rpm up to 2000 rpm or a little more maybe as much as 2200. Reset the mixture screws for smoothest fast-idle. Now retard that dizzy. If the motor speeds up, keep retarding it, until plateaus.If it slows down, return the carb to base idle speed and reset the timing to the former amount.Leave the mixture screws where they are, unless it idles rough, you can move them a bit. This will be your new official idle timing for the fuel that is in the carb.
Now there are two more things to do. #1, is power timing, and #2 is the Vcan.
But first take it for a spin. You will be testing for spark-knock/detonation/pinging/rattling, whatever term you are familiar with. You will be testing for it, in 2nd gear, and from idle to 2000 rpm, with various throttle settings.Anytime you hear detonation,grab an rpm reading and back off the throttle. Write it down and include an approximate throttle setting, like WOT, 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 throttle.Work your way up slowly. Take your time. Take a week or more.If you never hear it, move up to 3000 and repeat. And if you still never hear it, move up to 3500, and repeat, and once more to 4000. Stop there.At 3000 you only need to test 3/4 and Full throttle. At 4000,you only need to concern yourself with full throttle. But if you ever hear the dreaded rattle, back off the throttle immediately.
Now keep in mind, you have to be able to hear it. If your hearing is bad or your muffler is screaming, or you don't know what detonation sounds like,... All bets are off.
Ok now, back to the garage. Get the lite on it. Rev it up to 2000 and verify the previous setting, whatever it was, is still valid. Then move thru 2500,3000,3500, and 4000, recording the timing numbers as you go.If it maxs out over 36* you will have to mod the dizzy. If you never had any detonation, and you are sure about that, you can let her max at 38*.
But chances are you had all kinds of detonation after 2500 and over 1/2 throttle. So we can get into that in another post. Do not hook the Vcan back up until the power-timing is fixed.
When I Super-Sixed my slanty she liked a lot of timing.
Report back whenever you think you are ready to proceed, or need any other help.