I've been working to get all the mechanics done while the final body work is being done. My buddy a ford guy and I have been reassembling stuff. We added Vintage Air and then had to change out a bunch of stuff. With very little effort she fired up and began to settle down. I was running a cross fire distributor but switched it for a stock HEI. Somehow during the build I either put on the wrong timing tab or I wired it wrong. Its a Vortec 350, 330hp crate engine and we put on a 8in damper but we can barely see its mark. I guess the 4 groove pulley and other stuff maybe didn't work with this tag. The timing tag is mostly hidden by the long water pump and the various brackets. I can just see the mark on the damper if I look straight down between the water pump. We had some trouble with the old cross fire cap so we think we got the firing order correct (note that system changes the order). I not sure but we now show #1 on the left front if thats correct. Is there some sort of replacement tab for this engine? What should be the correct timing? Maybe I can make a mark. I did mark out the damper but its still hard to see, even with cheater glasses. Its running better than before and we had previously cranked up to #1 or at least we thought so. Where did we go wrong? I don't have the front end on but its tough getting my hand up in there. Any suggestions.
Pull the spark plug, stick your finger over the hole and bring #1 up to TDC (the compression should pop your finger off the hole). Then look down at the timing mark on the damper. If it's at Zero (or thereabouts), you have the distributor in wrong. If it's nowhere near zero, you have the wrong timing tab. -Brad
The Jalopy Journal
