Father, Son, and Grand Father project. 1963 Valiant

prorac1 said
So far it's great! Still a lot of tweaking and finishing to do before it's road ready.

We have initial timing at 12 degrees, total with vacuum and mechanical advance is 32.

We had a valve train click on initial cam break in. Jason removed the rocker shaft on that side, and when we bolted it back down it felt tighter.

I think from sitting the lifters might a blood down and we're having a hard time overcoming valve spring pressure. Now the tickfor the most part has gone away. There is still a little valvetrain noise, but I figure some of it's normal, some of it might be stainless pipe making noise, and some of it might be an exhaust leak. It's hard to tell right now. But it's very minor. Hardly discernible.

I still need to play with the carburetor. I think it needs a lower numerical power valve in a bigger squirter because it kind of falls on its face when you try to break stand it. Too much fuel.

But, boy oh boy, you want to talk about Jason being excited. He absolutely loves the exhaust note and the lope. First thing he said was, we have to send Rusty a video. LOL
Click to expand...

Don't include the vacuum when setting total timing. Leave it disconnected until you get total where it needs to be and then connect the vacuum. In other words, the total timing is initial, plus mechanical and that's ALL. When you hook the vacuum up AFTER getting total timing right, the vacuum will just pull in "whatever" it does.

I am sure you can use more initial timing. It will probably perform great with "around" 20 degrees initial and "the rest" mechanical. I wouldn't go more than 36 total. so that would be 16 mechanical total and you want all that 16 degrees in by no more than 3000 RPM, probably as soon as 2500, as long as there's no detonation.

To accomplish this, you will need to "somehow" limit the total timing. In other words mechanically "stop" it from advancing "all the way".

What kind of distributor is it? Is the mechanical advance adjustable? If not, there are "ways" to get that done.