Help with Timing

Timing tape is nice, but if you have an advance timing light (also called a dial back) its not necessary. First thing I would do is clearly mark TDC on the balancer and the timing tab. Silver shapies are great. You need a tach that you can see from where you are working. If you have vacuum advance, unhook it and plug the hose. Set the timing anywhere that would make it idle nice and start without bucking. Now raise the rpm and watch the curve till the advance quits advancing. For starters 35~37ish is a good max advance. The hardest part is building the advance curve into you distributor that matches you entire combo.