It seems dad and I keep coming up on stumbling blocks with his cuda. I dont know whether its Ma Mopars engineering or my stupidity and stubbornness. More my stupidity I think. If you have followed dad and my build with his car, you may remember we had 2 dampers and werent sure which was which. It turns out after engine is in and running that TDC on the balancer is not TDC. We discovered this after we were trying to get initial timing set. Dad ordered up timing tape as the factory tab is not big enough for "full" timing. I ended up making 2 phone calls yesterday while at dads. 1st one was to 67dart273(I got Del on speed dial LOL) Thanks again Del!! The other one was to Mopar Performance Tech line. Here is the low-down...car running by ear and sounded nice, but we wanted to get the timing set bang on. Timing tape installed. What a pain in the arse when doing it with engine in the car....if your engine is out do it then!! Finally got tape installed and car fired up....checked the "initial" timing....nowhere near the marks being where they were supposed to be. Turned the dizzy counter clockwise to get the marks to align...NO GO...car would stall! Did this a few times and it was like WTH?? Hit speed-dial for 67dart273...we had the vac advance hooked to the wrong port on the carb. We orig had it hooked to the ds front port, which is full time vacuum. It should have been hooked to the "ported vacuum port". So changed that and checked "initial" timing again and it was still way out, but sounded good....I start scratching my head(gonna go bald). I flip thru the install instructions on the Mopar Performance Elec Ign book...everything looks good...WTH again?? So I call Mopar Performance...spend about 20 minutes on the phone with them. Explained the problem, gave them a description of the car and problems. Over the phone its difficult, but he said that he cant understand why we cant get the timing tape scale to match with the factory timing tab. Well the only thing I could think of and that Mopar Performance mentioned was to get TRUE TOP DEAD CENTER. Well wish we had've done this waayyy back!! Turns out the TDC on damper is wrong for our engine!! So when timing tape was installed we used the TDC mark on damper for a reference....well no wonder we couldnt get it set right!! So to get true TDC we removed #1 spark plug, stuck a small dowel in till it was resting on top of piston. Cranked engine over by hand clockwise( not the easiest with 7 outta 8 plugs installed) till the dowel came to the top of its travel. Marked a spot on damper. We then cranked engine over counter clockwise and watched the dowel until it came up to the top of its travel. Marked this spot on damper. So the middle point of these 2 marks is TRUE TDC. Our true tdc was nowhere near the factory tdc mark on damper or where the timing tape said. So after making the correct and true tdc mark, we set #1 to compression and about 10* before tdc. Hooked everything backed up, fired it up and set initial to approx 15* before TDC with idle at about 900 rpm and vacuum advance plugged. Due to the timing tape being installed wrong its hard to tell what we got for full timing(2000 rpm) and vacuum advance hooked up. But I am guessing approx 45*. I may take the timing tape off now that we have the correct TDC marked and re-install it.
Sorry for being long-winded in this thread, but in the time it takes to read it, you could have found true top dead center and installed timing tape correctly 10 times over. I shoulda listened!! I dont know how many replies/responses to mine and several other members threads about being 100% certain about true TDC. You know how stupid your dog looks chasing its tail?? How you laugh watching them do it?? Well the Mopar gods were doing the same thing watching me!! Lesson learned here!! BTW install the timing tape with engine outside of the car, much much easier!
Thanks
4spdragtop
Sorry for being long-winded in this thread, but in the time it takes to read it, you could have found true top dead center and installed timing tape correctly 10 times over. I shoulda listened!! I dont know how many replies/responses to mine and several other members threads about being 100% certain about true TDC. You know how stupid your dog looks chasing its tail?? How you laugh watching them do it?? Well the Mopar gods were doing the same thing watching me!! Lesson learned here!! BTW install the timing tape with engine outside of the car, much much easier!
Thanks
4spdragtop
