LA Mopar electronic distributor retaining clip

The long and short of it. Not a particularly good design for an advance mechanism. With a fair amount of work a decent curve can be made, but not as good as can be made with a Chrysler mechanism. The rest of it is fine.

If you just want to get things running, it is fine. If you're going to use vacuum advance, try to slow the curve as much as you can around 1800 to 2800. Even if you have to use more initial timing than stock because its hot rodded, the mechanical timing in the 1800 - 2300 rpm range should be similar to factory timing. Otherwise it will ping at moderate throttle when using vacuum advance.

The design issue and possible improvements discussed here. Modifying YH Advance Weights
I haven't done the major weight modification yet. Your on your own if you try it. Working with a Chrysler built unit at the moment, don't want to mess with Mallory built one since its my fallback and baseline.

Canyoncarver is working with a Mallory YT which is basically the same as the YH
Distributor springs

Currently we’re running 20 degrees of initial timing.

It’s a stock 1983 318 with a Holley street dominator intake, and Holley 390 vacuum sec carb.

The cam is very similar to a 1968 4 speed 340 cam. 214/224, 444/466, 104 intake centerline.

With the distributor as is, it has around 39-40 degrees of total advance.

It did spark knock under load at lower rpm.

Vacuum advance is hooked up, but I’m not sure what it’s pulling.

I’m planing on limiting total advance to 34 degrees and going from there.

When do you determine when to eliminate vacuum advance

Thank you for all the info. Greatly appreciated.