40 degrees initial!

toolmanmike said

It's like something is goofy. Both of my v8's would die out if they were timed at 40° initial. very few engines will. The old drag racers would hook the distributor 12 volt power to a toggle switch and crank it over to start it and switch on the ignition so it wouldn't kick back against the starter. Unless you have a 350° duration .700 lift cam you don't need that.

Click to expand...

Thanks Mike. Just to be clear, I never moved throttle above idle while at 40* initial. I moved it right back to 20* initial. Never drove it like that or even touched throttle manually. I was stunned to see it there, too. I'm gonna check my springs (per Rusty) and see if I have some issue that's causing it to "want" 40 initial. It certainly didn't die out, so based on your experience something must be up. I'll leave timing at 20 initial, 38 total for now (I know she runs well at that) and then do those carb tests to see if I'm way too lean at idle.