360 timing questions

Ok, folks I took the girl out for her maiden drive last night after a long "quick" engine/trans swap, brakes, suspension, floors etc... and it was rather disapointing.
360 .030 Sealed Power 9.1 flattops, Crane 216* .454 cam, eddy rpm intake 600 holley DP, #587 heads that had been cut ? how much, but I had to have them cut another .010 cause the previous person cut them very badly. I have .045 shims under rocker shafts to get them right. factory high stall converter 727 with 2.94 rear.
Ok, when it runs in garage its great. revs super fast, but when I drive it, valves ping like crazy just driving under 25mph. timing was at 18* with max advance of 30* vacuum advance would not work on timed port(carb issue) but when I plug into manifold vac. it skyrockets to well over 60* at idle, so I just run mechanical advance.
Today I put in one of the Mopar quick advance springs in place of the yellow spring and left the blue spring in. still no vacuum advance I have an initial timing of 10* 34-35* at 2500 rpm and at 3000 it goes to 45* and holds. Should I leave it, or advance it to a total of 52*, where the book calls for it to be with a combination of mech and vac advance?
SORRY FOR BEING LONG WINDED!

No, no no. VACUUM advance "way out past 40" is for when you are tripping along 'easy' on the highway, light on the gas, not climbing a hill, not loaded down, etc,

WHEN YOU start to give it more and more gas, going up hill, or loaded, or just acellerating, the vacuum DROPS OFF which RETARDS the timing, so that with your foot on the floor at hard load, you EFFECTIVELY do not HAVE any vacuum advance.

You should be timing this (depending on compression, cam, fuel octane) 30-40* at high RPM, IE with all mechanical "in" and vacuum UNHOOKED whether you are going to run it or not.

The more you advance it, the worse it will ping.

I took it out tonight and it was not as bad as yesterday, but still pinged at the 10* retarded it to 4* and it still pinged. I think tomorrow I will put the yellow spring back on and swap the blue spring for the quick advance spring. Seems to me that the yellow spring limits the mechanical advance. if not, I have a limiter bushing that I can put on it. With the timing lower, it stumbled at low engine speeds. I guess I can also try a colder set of plugs also.

Is it overheating? What are you running for fuel?

Are you sure the timing marks are actually correct? That is one of the first things I'd do, you know how to use a "piston stop?"

Next I'd figure a way to tell what you have for advance. Either degree the balancer, buy the correct size timing tape, or buy a good "dial up" timing light. I don't like those, and don't use 'em. I always degree the balancer.

Are you SURE it's pinging and not an exhaust leak/ mechanical noise?

Does it use any oil? That will cause ping.

Its 3 am in here, so forgive me if i'm fool right now...

Have you measured your exact compression? Is there sharp edges in combustion chambers? If you dont know how much your heads were cut, I suppose you have a lot of compression..? If none of those ignition adjustments dont help you, try polishing combustion chambers.
And yeah, 67Dart273 is right, dont believe in balancers adjusting marks if you got old balancer! They seem to change position during a time.
I'm not a pro, just repeating what i've heard... Just wanted to give an other view.

Here is what you need to do. If you have an older distributor with a nonadjustable mechanical advance. Weld up the slots that are 1/2 inch to 3/8's inch this will limit your travel to 20 degrees. If you weld up the inside of the slot it will make the spring tension stronger and take longer for your total. If you weld up the outside the tension will be less and it will come in quicker. So weld up the the inside and use both light springs or weld the the outside and use the factory mediun and one light. If you want it to come in quicker remove the lighter of the two.

You want your initial at about 15 degrees and your total at about 35 degrees. For esample my motor is 12-1 compression. I have my distributor locked a 35 My msd puts my timing at 15 to start.. As soon as it starts and reaches 800 rpms it swithces my timing to 35 and it stays there until I shut the car off . It does this every time iit is started. My motor has a very large cam and has low cranking pressure so I can get away with a locked advanced you will need to determine where you want yours to come in at. 2500 is what everyone uses as a standard guide but if you play with the springs the quicker you can get into the total without detonation the beter it will run. Never go over 38 total you will cause damage to a new motor.

Remember 20 degrees is the total of travel your mecanical advance should move no more. Wants you find where your motor likes its total then when it drops to an idle this will be your initial. Time your motor for total and let the initial fall where it may. moving your spring tension will change when the total comes in. If the spring tension is to light it will go in and out at an idle and cause it to surge up and down.

If I go to start my car and it starts at 15 degrees and reaches 800 or above in RPM's and the MSD swithces to 3500 degrees and then stalls. I have to shut the msd off and then turn it back on or it will try to start a 35 degrees This is the only system that will let you run a locked distributor correctly. Otherwise you need a kill switch to flip on after the motor is spinning. If a plug fires a charge at 35 degrees before it reaches the top it will try to spin bacwards, I have seen motors destroy starters when this happens

Thanks everyone...
Motor does not go over 180* in temperature and running 87 octane right now. Timing marks are dead on and I have a MP timing tape on the balancer. It is not using any oil, has roughly 10 miles on the motor since rebuild. I changed out the blue for the heavy yellow spring and I literally got 5* mechanical advance after doing so. I have another distributor here, so I put it in and has the stock yellow/blue springs and it only gets 10* mechanical advance, but hardly no ping at all. I change out the yellow spring in the first distributor for a chevy one and much better, but slooow on the advance. 12* initial then jumps to 30* at maybe 3000 rpm. at about 4000 rpm the vac advance finally decides it wants to participate in the fun and jumps it over 60*. (I have an issue with my carb's timed vac port) I take the beast out around the neighborhood and it is much better. Still a bit slow to rev, little pinging. I still have trans and carb gremlins to get out but I am trying to get one at a time. I have an old points dist here that looks to have different color springs in it that I was thinking of trying.
Oldmanmopar I think I will try welding the outside of the slots so I can have some flexability with the springs. I guess it will take a few times of pulling the dist to get the total advance right. I think I need a slower curve since it is a heavy car with tall gears.
Thanks again for the help

Since you say the heads have been cut a bunch but you don't really know how much it's quite possible your compression is closer to 10 to 1 so 87 octane is not nearly enough. I'd put in some 93 octane before you blow the bearings and/or pistons out of it. Detonation is very destructive.

BTW: shimming up the rocker shafts .045" is not the right way to correct for all the milling that's been done. To do it right you need to install shorter pushrods. When you shim the rocker shafts up you also bring them closer to the valves. In doing so you throw the valve train geometry off. You can get away with a minor amount of shimming them but I personally don't like to go over .020" at the most. JMHO

And why are you checking the timing with the vacuum advance hooked up?? You never check it that way! You need to determine the total centrifugal advance first and with the vac advance hooked up you'll never get a correct reading. The pecking order is work on getting the centrifugal advance correct then hook the vac advance up and tune it.

Yes, I am shopping around for some adjustable rockers now to deal with that issue. I am setting the timing without the vacuum advance hooked up. After I set the initial and mechanical timing, I hook up the vac advance to see where the total timing is at after the vacuum advance comes into play. I am going to get some fuel today and try again.

I changed out the springs from a points distributor, and used a different distributor I had been using. Now I have 12* initial, 34* mechanical and total still needs work, but I have to wait for my new carb to get here. Took the car out and no ping! I will still change the plugs to Autolight 63's from the #65 in it now. I will also try a lighter spring in place of the medium and see how it responds.
I love how the tv shows do a complete makeover of a car and have no issues with it and everything runs perfectly and flawlessly right from the start. What horsepoop!

67Dart273 said:

Yes, yes, and yes. Not only that, but putting that much shim in there decreases the radius of the saddle where the shaft is supposed to fit, This is going to put stress on the whole mounting "ear" of the block, as well as tending to force the shaft out of round.

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I don't believe someone is listening!

You cleared up some confusion abt vacuum adv I was unsure of, and I've been working on my own cars since 1961!

CudaMike

gliderider06 said:

Yes, I am shopping around for some adjustable rockers now to deal with that issue. I am setting the timing without the vacuum advance hooked up. After I set the initial and mechanical timing, I hook up the vac advance to see where the total timing is at after the vacuum advance comes into play. I am going to get some fuel today and try again.

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OK

gliderider06 said:

I love how the tv shows do a complete makeover of a car and have no issues with it and everything runs perfectly and flawlessly right from the start. What horsepoop!

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Oh they have their problems too. They just edit them out so it looks good on them.