Basic timing for a 74 318

YY1 said

My book (Motor's) says 0* for my 73...and darned if it don't spark knock at anthing greater than 0*.

That's on pump 87 oct, though, and 89 didn't help, so went back to 0*.

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You need to either recurve your distributor or buy a performance one with a shorter curve. It will run WAY better. The "smog" distributors had a LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG SSSSLSLLLLLOOOWWWW curve in them. You cannot just "bump up" the timing on some of them as then they will over---advance at higher RPM. Some of them had a lot of advance in the vacuum can, too.

I'm currently running a "was all stock" early 70's 318 I found on Craigslist with low miles. It runs the equivalent of close to a 340 cam, but even before I swapped the cam, I ran it with the Accel dist at over 12*. The cam in there now runs at 15* BTC. It runs REGULAR gas and never pings, at about 36 total