Looking for more pep off the line

Alecb said
I'm currently running stock ignition, a regular distributor with a blue ignition module. I did put some medium springs on the weights. The ballast resistor is bypassed. I didn't degree the cam, just lined up the dots and sent it.

Ok. Honesty is good. lol Well, sans ripping into the timing cover, lets get you a better ignition curve. I can see right now the two medium springs are having some effect. What "I" do is put one medium and one light spring in. Almost always, this gets the "all in" rpm just right. Normally it's all in by 2500-2800 using that method. What you have now is probably all in by 3200-3500. Also, you need to find some way to limit the total mechanical advance. I like the timing limiter plate by FBO. You can get one here: How to limit mechanical advance in a mopar distributor, tuning for street, strip or all out racing, cure that rich stinky idle, win races
A good starting point for you would be the 16 degree slots. That means you would set the initial timing at 18 degrees and the limiter plate on the 14 slots would give you 34 degrees total. With the light and medium springs it would be all in by well under 3000. Your engine has some compression, so I recommend starting conservatively with timing. Normally, I recommend starting at 20 initial......yours might can stand it, but 18 is better and maybe even 16 and use 18 degree slots. I think there's a lot of room left in the tune. I don't agree with swapping out big, expensive parts yet. You need to optimize what you have NOW and then decide whether you want to make big changes. If you feel froggy, I would recommend degreeing that camshaft. As of now, you don't know WHERE it is and it could be several degrees retarded. You just don't know. "Dot to dot" means nothing in the world of slack machining tolerances. I've seen dot to dot 12 degrees retarded before. Also as someone else mentioned, if you can get a compression tester and give us some numbers there, that would be a big indicator as to what you need for tuning.