Manifold Vacuum Experiment

This whole thread doesn't make any sense.

You're running manifold vacuum to vacuum advance. In other words, you're forcing the timing to advance at idle and low end, but it's also advanced all the time at the low end. So then you're readjusting the distributor timing at idle?

Vacuum advance is an economy measure, nothing more. At WOT, the vacuum drops, the timing retards. At cruise, vacuum is high, so vacuum advance kicks in advance to insure full burn of a relative low volume of air/fuel.

Hooking up vacuum advance to manifold vacuum is adding in advance, but it's doing it at a point in load/RPM where you should be altering springs on the advance weights, or dialing in the distributor twist.

Adjusting the screw in the vacuum cannister only adjusts the rate of vacuum advance, not the total amount (the analog when using manifold vacuum goes right back to when you should be altering the springs). So when you improperly use tuning vacuum advance settings to improve low end performance (via manifold vacuum), you're going to lose economy and increase ring wear due to fuel wash at cruise, because you're using the vacuum advance in place of properly tuning the distributor and not when it's supposed to be used.

NONE of this talks about the actual vacuum stop limits in the advance canister. If you don't know this number from your canister, then someone elses' experience with tuning using manifold vacuum is potentially very different from yours.

Ping Pong covers the base of this, but the magazine articles were much more in depth.

TLDR: If you're seeing improvements in low end performance by going to manifold vacuum, that means you need tune your timing in the distributor, not use the vacuum advance as a crutch.
Although I did readjust the timing with the advance can hooked to manifold vacuum, guess what? It ended right back in the same place as with ported vacuum, 20 degrees BTDC. With the full manifold vacuum on the can, I have 40 degrees BTDC. Remove and block the hose at the vacuum can and 20 degrees BTDC, just like before.

Yall are shootin the messenger here. All I'm doing is making a modification and recording it here. I cannot help the outcome. It is what it is. All I'm doing is reporting on that outcome.

And the old adage "vacuum advance is not a performance part" is simply not true. It most certainly can be, if used in the correct manner. Might wanna read this article. Although my numbers differ from the engine in the article (due I am sure to my engine's low compression), the results are basically the same, with the exception that their can only added 10 crank degrees, while mine adds 20. Tons of articles all over the internet that debunk the myth that vacuum advance is only an emissions part.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/1607-tune-your-vacuum-advance-for-better-drivability/