How much slack should a timing chain have ?

When you turn the dust clockwise you need to raise the idle every few degrees of timing or it will die

 

I know, but no matter how much I turned the idle up I couldn't retard it back anywhere near where it should be.

---------- Post added at 09:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 AM ----------

Ok, I'm certain that the balancer is where it should be. Would it make any difference if the distributor was off a tooth? Wouldn't turning the distributor compenstae for that regardless? It also pops through the carb sometimes.

 

It may be totally irrelevant, but is that the original distributor? I transplanted a 350 HEI into a 455 once, not realizing that the big block uses a different dist gear... when trying to get the thing running it backfired so hard it blew the muffler wide open and my dog almost had a heart attack!!!

 

I don't know if it's original but it was in there when I got it, I also put a TA bronze gear on there, and yesterday the timing was 10* initial and 28*-29* total
o No:

 

i thought you could only use a bronze gear with a billet roller cam?

 

ahh i see. 99% of the time when timing has to be super advanced for one to run its a vacuum leak unless the balancer slipped. in my experience.

 

Are you sure you are using #1 plug wire to check your timing?

I had to ask because all the other stuff being talked about is irrelevant. Larry is 100% when he says what you say is happening can't be happening. The dist. can only have so much advance in it and that is that. The 28 in the dist is WITH the bushing since the factory had the rubber one in there when specing it out. Taking the bushing out will actually allow more advance. Not much more , maybe 10 or so because the weights only can move so far. The springs only change the point at which full advance is in and not how much.

If the engine is running at all the timing must be within 30-40 of where it should be and that is probably being optimistic. So either your timing light is going bad(overnight) or we get back to my first question. It is the only logical reason since you said the damper didn't slip and I would agree with that because it probably didn't do that overnight either. If you are on #1 then get a different timing light because all the spring/bushing playing around isn't going to do it.

I know this much I had a timing chain jump one tooth because of the factory plastic gear and the car started to run like junk/barely idling. I checked the timing and it was off retarded by a ton. I adjusted the distributer to get the timing to where it should be and the car started to idle/run better but when you gave it the gas all it did was make lots of intake/carb noise but had no power. When the cam timing jumps one tooth like that it would retard the cam about 16 which makes sense why all noise no power. New gear set and all was well. So it comes down to it, was your original problem a properly timed camshaft?

 

Yep, I'm an idiot. This whole time I had the timing light connected to #2 plug wire.

---------- Post added at 01:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 PM ----------

And with the black springs and bushing installed, the best I can get is 12* initial amd maybe just barely 30* total.

 

serious?? or sarcasm??

 

serious

 

Well I got that one in under the wire:Brow: #1 and #2 side by side.

One question unanswered in the "Mystery Stage 1" thread: What cam did you end up putting in because of the broken tooth or was that in another thread?

A slightly loose chain never hurt anything and most engines loosen up their timing chain in only a few hundred miles. That is generally why you install a cam 4 advanced, to make up for chain stretch that you know is coming. Under normal conditions the cam is always trying to retard itself because of all the valvetrain friction trying to hold it back and that stabilizes it somewhat. It won't be flopping back and forth except when maybe decellerating.

If you still have a problem with surging with proper timing a nice hot ignition box can really help there because it burns up every bit of gas. Something like a MSD or Mallory can do the trick on mild surging. You can use your points to activate them. There's always a cheap used MSD-6A box on E-bay.

 

I put the old 118 with the chipped tooth back in there. That's why I'm using a bronze gear. I never had the engine running before that and I didn't want to put a new cam in there if I wasn't sure I would be able to break it in properly. Which I wasn't.