A little more info, to start. To break in the engine I did the initial on a run stand at a friend's house. Once it was in the truck I got it running and drove it politely for the first 100 miles or so, at varying speeds. After that I did the occasional harder acceleration as I got more miles on it. It hasn't been driven super hard but it's not been babied for the current 700 miles.
The ignition is the HEI conversion, I forgot to mention that earlier. The distributor is a Super Six with a fresh rebuild.
I'm such a newb at diagnosis, I had no procedure at all. I parked the truck from its last grocery store run and pulled the plugs a week later. I saw your process in your later post, I'll give that a try.
I have a temp gun and will give this a shot.
Yes, timing was all over the place while I fiddled with it. It doesn't help that my two best local resources, both very experienced slanters, disagree on ported or manifold vacuum. I tried them both but I don't know which was better. I currently have it on manifold vacuum and set at about 18* initial. I do not get any pinging under heavy load.
The cam isn't all that much bigger than stock, it's more of an RV cam for better low end grunt.
I can do this, as you and RRR suggest.
One other complicating factor that I was going to address in another thread, is I have a ticking/clicking noise to deal with and I can't find it. My hearing is poor and I can't tell where sound comes from as I only have one ear that works and that one is mediocre at best. I've had a half dozen knowledgeable car guys try to help locate it but so far no luck. I did re-lash the valves last week but I'm going to double check that. I'm hesitant to keep running the truck until I find the noise in case it's something No Good inside the engine. However, the noise has been going on for a while and it's not getting worse so I'll deal with that after I go through the suggestions above. We are in the middle of a very intense and extended rainstorm so it will likely be a few days until I can check things out.
