Setting Dwell

K. I adjusted the idle to 750 RPM in neutral. The point gap was tricky to get right. Every thousandth of an inch made a big difference. First I got the points to line up with the high point lobe on the cam.

I widened the gap a couple times. It got worse, a couple of the times it wouldn't start. When it was too wide, the dwell read way lower around 10-12 and the motor sounded bad and was pinging a lot so I turned it off quick.

I made the points gap smaller and it ran better and finally got the dwell up to about 31 degrees. I left it there and changed the idle speed again to 750. Then I got the timing light and saw that it was retarded about 8 degrees ATDC. So adjusted the timing to about 4 degrees BTDC. Sounds pretty good now and runs better.

One problem is that the tach on the Tach/Dwell meter reads differently than my Autometer inside the car. They have about a 100 RPM difference! So this is obviously going make a difference when timing the car. I decided to use the Autometer to set the idle at 750 but since the other meter is off, the dwell reading is probably not right either. O well! Will go electronic sooner or later. Thanks for the help guys!