Anyone know a direct extension at Holley who knows their stuff?

When I got the carb, it had no port. It had the hole with a plug in it, so I put in a nipple at the top side of the metering block.

This morning, I plugged that off and plugged my nipple on the distributor.

I will let you guys know what happens next time I drive it.

Your suggestions and the symptoms I am seeing and feeling lead me to believe (and hope) that this is THE fix for my last 2 weeks of fighting with the carb.

Might explain why I thought the Edelbrock 600 was too small, since the symptoms were almost the same.

 

More detail...

The distributor is an O'Reilly stock replacement. I tried to do the 10L swap a while back, but this dizzy had different numbers on it. It has 18 and 13, and is set on 13 now.

I wonder if this replacement is set up too heavy and puts too much advance on under vacuum and rpms...

 

I've never had the reasons to change the advance springs in any distributor, but seems to me heavier springs would limit the advance rate.

 

Scooper,
Listen very carefully.
The 13 on the advance plate means that your mechanical advance is 26 degrees in the distributor. 13 distributor degrees = 26 crankshaft degrees.
You should not set your initial timing any more than 10 degrees or you will eventually damage your engine from preignition.
Hook your vacuum advance back up. It is what gives you decent gas mileage when the engine is properly tuned.

If it was my engine and was a daily driver I would set the timing at 8 degrees and call it good. the 302 usually runs best with a total of 34 degrees advance and you are in no danger of hurting your engine. The vacuum advance works off of manifold vacuum so when you need the power that advance goes away and when you need economy it comes back.

Understand that your engine will run better under load with 34 degrees of total advance then it will with 40 or 45 or 50. The vacuum advance is not counted when calculating maximum (total) advance. That is why it is disconnected and plugged when you set your timing.
Running manifold vacuum to the vacuum advance will make the engine idle higher but it will not hurt the engine. I have seen some engines that run better with manifold vacuum and others that run better using the ported vacuum signal from the carb. Ford has used both on various engines.

 

I may get a chance to mess with it today. I will let you know what I find out.

 

I set my initial timing to 12-14* on all my engines and there's no danger or damage from pre-ignition. There can be if the motor pings with this setting, if it does, all it needs then is fuel with a higher octane rating. Running the vacuum advance hooked to full vacuum after setting the initial advance to more than 10* will result in an even higher setting in operation. Setting the initial to even 6* then hooking the vacuum to full will also result in a higher setting than 14*

 

OK, I just went out and ran it with the light on it, and it is set at 14 initial, and total is right at 30 (vacuum hose removed, all ports plugged).

I didn't drive it like this, just started it up to see where I have had it set.

Shouldn't it go up to 40 since it is set on the 13 for 26 and there is 14 initial? Or am I STILL not getting it :16suspect

 

By the way, I don't want to spend too much time on the distributor. It is a cheap replacement I got from O'Reilly years ago when the stock one froze up on me. I plan on replacing it with something better in the near future.

I really just want to see if taking off the hose gets rid of the lean condition I have been fighting for the past week or two.

 

I don't know Scoop, I've never seen the need to play with the springs or weights. If it's at 14 initial, seems it'll go up more with the vacuum advance plus the advance from the weights. I think you need to add all three figures for the total. You want the total to be no more than about 34-36. Less if you have E6SE heads. These need less advance than all the other SBF heads.

 

The reason you don't count the vacuum advance is because when you step on the gas to accelerate the vacuum drops off and the vacuum advance disappears. Only the mechanical and initial advance matters when you calculate total advance (under load) which is what matters.
Yes the advance will go up at idle - that makes it idle faster so you can adjust the carb down so the car will shut off with the key.

OK, If you want the TOTAL advance at 34 -36 and the distributor has 26 degrees built in to it then you can't set the initial advanve to more than 10 degrees.
If you set the initial advance at 14 degrees and there is 26 degrees in the distributor you end up with 40 degrees of total advance under load. Set your timing back to 10 degrees. Your distributor, if it is a stock replacement, is probably not getting total mechanical advance until 4000 rpm. Lighter springs (from a tuning kit) will allow the advance to happen faster. That is what modifying the advance curve does.

Look, don't believe what anyone on the internet says - find a book - Petersen or HPBooks or S-A Design are all sell booklets in auto parts stores and each of them have books on tuning your timing. Go get one and read it. If you don't understand something in the books then ask. Get the straight scoop first - you are getting confused here.

 

Paul, you fixed me here. I was only revving it to about 2500-3000 thinking that was where my distributor was stopping it's mechanical advance. I didn't know it went way up to around 4000 before all the advance is in.

I was confused because I expected more than 30 when I added the 26 to my 14.

Like I said earlier, I don't plan on modifying this distributor. I will upgrade later on, but for now, I am just trying to not run so lean.