5° initial with the stock dizzy curve is too far advanced on a stock '74.
The setting should have been 0°, TDC.
These come with rather extensive advance to get the economy up there. The governor is likely a 15r. That gives 30° of mechanical. Coupled with the stock Vacuum advance your going to have way to much advance to run without EGR.
A 9R governor, coupled with replacing the light spring with a much lighter one will hop the advance in quicker. I have a light spring from an 80's ford 302 in my old distributor. That helps quite a bit with acceleration. If your vacuum amplifier is shot or the thermal switch and vacuum routing is messed up the EGR isn't going to work right.
I'm running a Mallory Unilite with 20° of initial and 8° of mechanical all in by 2400 rpm. (No Vacuum advance.)
If your going to stuff a big motor in, then you don't need to worry about this stuff.
It can be fun to play with the slant to see what you can get out of it, but it's not for everybody. :-D
When you throw the parts away, throw them to one of us nut-cases that like to play with them. A '74 may have the BH block, which is the more desireable choice for building power.
If it's a 198, it has a set of rods in there that are much sought after. (Though not necessarily to put back into a 198!)
The 198 and 225 blocks are identical, the only difference is the rod length and stroke. ID the engine on the pad on the block deck beneath plug #1.
999 times out of 1000 it will be a 225.
CJ
