Reusing stretched timing set....?

Dartnut said
Agreed.
If you have it laying around anyway, what else are you going to use it on? This is why you save decent/okay used parts.
I would install it maybe the 4 degrees advanced and forget about it.
It's just a thrown together thing anyway, and you have the tensioner to boot.
Don't over think this, it'll be a lot better than what you had, and will last trouble free for a long time..........
I'm all about using GOOD used parts if you are on a budget, that's how i built my Dart Sport, and is the reason i am driving it instead of still building it!
It ain't going to blow up if you do this!

That's exactly my thinking with this. I could have thrown away the timing set, rods, crank, etc. because I wouldn't call them "perfect", but I decided to save them because I like having spare parts; I've been in the hobby about 10 years and could definitely use a bigger stash to select from. My Fifth Ave ran well enough to not even bother with the stock timing set but I decided to at least replace it with something that doesn't have 1" of slack and plastic cam sprocket teeth at the same time I do my 4-barrel conversion. I will surely be revving it higher than before (meaning 4200-ish instead of 3500) and probably just driving it harder in general at times just to have fun but this is a 4000-lb cruiser with A/C and power everything, strictly street driver duty.

I didn't want to take the time to check the play with a degree wheel but I did slide on the crank sprocket with the 4* advance keyway and noted the position of the timing mark compared to where it is with the straight-up keyway. Then once I installed the timing set straight-up and released the tensioner I again looked at the timing marks to see how far they were off; I'd say the timing set has about 1* of retard, 2* tops meaning if I had installed it 4* advanced it would have actually been 2-3 seen at the cam. Good enough for me especially considering this is a fairly heavy car, advanced would have given me a bit more grunt but pinging is very possible with these engines even with the not-so-high compression. In fact the stock engine computer (basically a later version of Lean Burn) had a knock sensor and would retard ignition timing when lower-octane fuel was used because apparently regular gas could make it knock. Even on the gas filler door it says "Premium Fuel Recommended" lol!