Timing issue

[rcvivian]

I'm having a problem getting the timing set on my vette. I have the light hooked up, idle set and the vacuum hose plugged. Once I had everything set up and read the timing mark, it reads 14 degrees advanced. WHen I turn the distributor to try and get the mark towards 0, the engine starts to idle rough and almost dies around the 8 - 10 degree setting.

It currently runs but it seems to be missing when idling.

 

[AKRAY4PLAY]

do you still have the stock harmonic balancer?? if so it sounds like the outter ring may have slipped. try setting your timing using a vacuum guage. set it with a hot engine and the vac advance disconnected and plugged. shoot for maximum vac at idle, it should be the best timing for that particular engine.

 

[rcvivian]

I believe it's the orginal HB. The engine has an after market intake manifold and the vacuum advance hits the intake so I can only turn the distributor so far. This smoothes it out somewhat but it looks as though I'll need to change out the intake or get a thiner HEI distribitor.

 

[AKRAY4PLAY]

you don't need anything new, just to re-stab the distributor. sounds like someone stabbed it a tooth off. pull you dist cap and remove the lock-down fork. slowly lift the distributor and play close attention to the position of the rotor. the rotor will turn as you lift the distributor. lift it about two inches, and you'll see when the rotor stops spinning as the dist comes up. at that point the dist is disenguaged from the cam and ready to turn. turn it clockwise a little and restab it. it will not go all the way, hangs up about 3/8 of and inch from going all the way down. gently roll the motor with the starter or a wrench on the HB mounting bolt. this allows the ditributor spin while enguaged in the cam and align itself with oil pump knotch. once it aligns with the oil pump, it will drop the rest of way down and your ready to time it. roll the motor to TDC on #1 cylinder and point the rotor to the number one teminal of the dist cap. this should be good enough to get it started and fine tune the timing once its running. hope that helps, Brian.