Help me tune my dizzy?

vntned said
So I played with the timing some today as well as the basic carb adjustments. First off, I found out that my timing light was FUBAR, so I borrowed a good one and ended up putting the initial timing at a true 16deg. Idle air screws on the carb ended up 1.5 turns out. Idle is about 900rpm right now, I wanna get it a little lower to 800rpm.

Took it out for a 30mile test drive. It runs really strong, and cruises fine, however it runs warmer than I'd like. At a steady 50mph/2000rpm the SW mech temp gauge shows around 200-205deg. At idle it'll creep up to nearly 220deg. I'm not sure if that's ok or normal, considering it is a 0.060" over 360. I'm running a 180deg Tstat, an aluminum 22" radiator from Northern Rads, and an electric fan.

I also found out that if I roll into the throttle in 1st gear, it's fine. However if I snap the throttle off idle it develops a traction issue den at part throttle. Weird, right?!

Idle screws out 1.5 turns sounds pretty good. Do you do the t-port sync yet? That may help with any slightly higher idle problems.

As for overheating. 200 isn't bad. The hotter the engine runs is actually better for cylinder wear and mileage. You ideally wanna be around 190. That's usually where small blocks do best. That said. MORE initial timing actually runs COOLER. So your car may still want another 2-4 degrees of timing. Assuming you can still hot start it. What kind of fan setup are you running? And more importantly, do you have a shroud?