A freind of mine has a distributor machine and I am going to have the distributor curved before a dyno run this weekend. The motor is a 455 with 9.5:1 compression, mild cam, stage 1 heads, shorty headers and an edelbrock intake. Trans is a 2004r and the car is primarily street driven. What do I want to use for initial timing and total timing? Can anyone give me all the specs I would need to best set up my distributor? What can I expect as far as driveability from a properly setup distributor? thanks Bob
Bob, Most Buick motors run best with a total of between 30 and 34*. Get the advance in before 2500 RPM, and start the advance at about 1000 RPM. I would run 12 initial and 32 total(20* mechanical at the crank). Then if you bump up your timing to 14 initial, you'll have 34 total. If you plan to use vacuum advance, get an adjustable cannister like the Crane cams unit. Limit the vacuum advance to 8-10*, and adjust the cannister so the vacuum advance drops off when you punch the pedal. Hope that helps.
