And you are my friend for life,with your kind words.
Now, let's talk a little about timing.
On the street
-You may never know the difference between optimum power timing, and 2 to 4 degrees short of optimum.And the reason is you are rarely in the rpm zone when it matters, and, rarely in that zone for more than a second or two,and,the engine is rarely loaded to the point where it might be working hard.
-Let's take an example; Suppose your warmed up 360 has street friendly gears of 3.23s, and a street friendly TC of 2400. This is enough gear and rpm, for that engine to roast 245/255s in that 73 Duster.So the engine is not working hard. As soon as it lights them up, the car accelerates away. You can even,for a short time, modulate the amount of tirespin. But around 50 to 55 mph that 8/1 RVcammed engine runs out of rpm, so you shift. The Rs drop to 3200 ish and off she goes again.But the speed limit is fast approaching. This whole thing takes less than 6 seconds, and the engine is never loaded very hard. And suppose the power timing was not optimum from 4000 to 5500. How much performance might you have lost? Well you were in that zone from 38 to 55 =17 mph. You never even got into it in 2nd gear. So out of the 6 seconds, you might have been in the zone for 1 to 1.5 seconds. Will that show up on your zero to 60 ET? probably.Are you gonna feel it?Not 2 degrees short you won't! Maybe not even 4 degrees short.
-The point is this; Why push the timing envelope that hard for a streeter? It doesn't take a lot of spark knock to destroy an engine.So sneak up on the optimum power-timing.
-If you wanna experiment, do so in the stall speed to 3600 zone. Get that figured out.That will make all the difference to a streeter.And not just the power-timing in this zone, but the part throttle timing, and the cruise timing,as well. Depending on the load/rpm, sometimes my 360 is liking 45 to 55 to 60 degrees of advance, in this zone. I'm not suggesting your 8/1 engine will like timings that large; Only that I give her what she wants, then she gives me what I want.
-If you have an EFI equipped car put a scanner on it and take it for a ride sometime. Have someone else drive while you eyeball the little screen.Watch what the timing is doing.Surprise,surprise.
