Pro Flo 4 Timing

[TurboGLH]

I set the distributor at the #1 plug wire on the cap which I had marked on the body of the distributor with the damper set at 12*. Even if the damper had been at 0* the rotor would have been very close. Trying to move the gear on the cam one tooth either way would have been noticeably off. I have two engines, one with ProFlo4 and one with ProFlo3 and both act identical when it comes to this issue.

I don’t think all of us have mis installed the distributor.

There was more than enough adjustment in the rotor to account for all the movement I wanted, plus some. So I guess it doesn't matter either way, but I'm just as happy not having to pull the distributor. It's after 8 here, and I try not to annoy my neighbors. I'll post up results tomorrow after a test start/drive.

 

[Mopar73340]

So did you advance the rotor or retard it? I ordered the adjustable rotor yesterday so it won’t be here for a couple days. Interested to hear how it works on your engine.

 

[TurboGLH]

So did you advance the rotor or retard it? I ordered the adjustable rotor yesterday so it won’t be here for a couple days. Interested to hear how it works on your engine.

I moved it the rotor CW until it was centered on the #1 post when the motor was set at 25deg BTDC. That's the middle of my timing range (15initial, 35 total) not including any vacuum advance. There was still more room for adjustment if I find there's still an issue at high vacuum part throttle (where I was having issues) when the timing will be as high as 40-45.

 

[Ivan Baez]

I set the distributor at the #1 plug wire on the cap which I had marked on the body of the distributor with the damper set at 12*. Even if the damper had been at 0* the rotor would have been very close. Trying to move the gear on the cam one tooth either way would have been noticeably off. I have two engines, one with ProFlo4 and one with ProFlo3 and both act identical when it comes to this issue.

I don’t think all of us have mis installed the distributor.

but also Edelbrock should have tested it no?,seems weird, just like the fact the 426 map did not work on my application but had to go a lot higher for the system to behave ok all across the RPM range. If the the vaccuum advance issue is the problem because of how the ECU reads the MAP sensor value thet should be an easy settings fix, even if not orthodox.

Lets see how the rotor alignment works out for TruboGLH

 

[Ivan Baez]

I moved it the rotor CW until it was centered on the #1 post when the motor was set at 25deg BTDC. That's the middle of my timing range (15initial, 35 total) not including any vacuum advance. There was still more room for adjustment if I find there's still an issue at high vacuum part throttle (where I was having issues) when the timing will be as high as 40-45.

if possible take pictures on how it looked as stock and how it looks once you corrected it with the adjustable rotor cap

 

[Ivan Baez]

This may be useful information from the edebrock EFI forum by on of the Edelbrock tech guys:

"You're close but there are a couple other details to keep in mind. First, the vacuum advance is applied across the full vacuum scale. This means that vacuum advance is minimum at lowest vacuum (like when near atmospheric pressure) and maximum at highest vacuum (-30 inHg). If your vacuum advance is set to 5° and you're idling at -10 inHg of vacuum, your actual vacuum advance is only going to be 1.67°. The point of vacuum advance is to apply more ignition timing in low load cruise where you're going to have a lot more vacuum than just sitting at idle. The idle control timing is for timing control at idle - see next paragraph.

If you're checking your timing while in idle, you're going to see significant changes in ignition timing because the ECU is using a corrective timing trim to help control idle engine speed. It's much quicker to control engine speed using ignition timing than it is to try and move the idle air control plunger in and out to control air flow. You would need exit idle (apply a little throttle to increase engine speed) to see what the timing is doing without the idle ignition trim being active. One step you should have done was to lock the timing in the app to 12° in order to set your base timing. By locking the timing, you disable the idle and vacuum advance trims and run at a fixed 12° advance. You can check it again in Advanced Tuning>Base Timing. Any variance you see in timing at the crank with a timing light with the timing locked is due to cam and distributor drive slop."

I hope is useful.

So basically if you are above your start time increase threshold and the ECU is not reading zero the vacuum advance is being partially added to your base timing. This becomes very important if the MAP is not reading zero at full throttle, because it will be adding some vacuum advance portion to your highest timing setting even if under hard acceleration.

At least the vacuum advance seems to be linear, so you can make a pretty easy calculation on how both should combine to not screw up and have your desired top atiming advance at full throttle.

Take care,

 

[TurboGLH]

if possible take pictures on how it looked as stock and how it looks once you corrected it with the adjustable rotor cap

In order, 25 deg of advance stock, 25 deg of advance adjusted, 35 deg of advance stock, 35 deg of advance adjusted.

 

[Ivan Baez]

In order, 25 deg of advance stock, 25 deg of advance adjusted, 35 deg of advance stock, 35 deg of advance adjusted.

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thanks, thats great.

how did the car run after these adjustments?

 

[Cal Tonsley]

that is great tip, I guess thats why mine liked it when I lowered the top advance. Will check out what I have at vacuum. As a matter of fact I did notice the vacuum reading was very good for my cam specs (around 17 inch vacuum at idle), but atributed it to the fact that I put an "serious street/mild race" cam for a 360LA into a 426 stroker. I had to load a much larger map and a high acceleration pump value (over 90% for a few seconds) to get the fueling part right and avoid it from leaning out. but at the end it ran nice, check out the video below:







I will check the reading at full throttle to see if its adding the vacuum advance to the theorical acceleration advance curve to see if its doing the same as the black car.

Ivan, thanks for sharing your videos, that is one very nice looking and speedy Barracuda!!

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

If you turn the rail around and use Edelbrock’s rail mounted regulator it makes for a tidy installation.

 

[Ivan Baez]

If you turn the rail around and use Edelbrock’s rail mounted regulator it makes for a tidy installation.

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that looks cool, I ran the edelbrock EFI fuel pum kit and the regulator is already integrated into it.

 

[JoesEdge]

Adjustable rotor MSD 84211 works.
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By any chance, did you post this to the Edelbrock forums too? Doing so may light a fire under their butt to fix it or offer the part as well as a work around solution.

 

[JoesEdge]

If you turn the rail around and use Edelbrock’s rail mounted regulator it makes for a tidy installation.

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@GMachineDartGT I'm assuming the fuel hoses come up along the firewall? Do you have any pictures of how you ran those? No worries with the heat from the headers? What type of hoses are you running? Thanks!!!

 

[Ivan Baez]

This is my setup, using a high flow edelbrock mechanical pump feeding the edelbrock EFI pump, using the stock line (orange) on the mechanical one.

The stock lines are close to the headers, about 2 inches or so

 

[TurboGLH]

By any chance, did you post this to the Edelbrock forums too? Doing so may light a fire under their butt to fix it or offer the part as well as a work around solution.

I posted that it worked, but not how much it corrected the rotor position. I'll post the before/after photos when I get home.

thanks, thats great.

how did the car run after these adjustments?

It was late, my neighbors are old, and the car is loud. I'll know more tonight if the weather holds out.

 

[TurboGLH]

@GMachineDartGT I'm assuming the fuel hoses come up along the firewall? Do you have any pictures of how you ran those? No worries with the heat from the headers? What type of hoses are you running? Thanks!!!

I'm running 3/8" nicopp front to back, flared ends, aeroquip fc355 line, aeroquip fittings, and sniper EFI in cell fuel pump.

 

[TurboGLH]

thanks, thats great.

how did the car run after these adjustments?

Raining here, but cold start was better. I would have to feather the throttle for a bit no matter what I did before, now it cranks and idles right where it's supposed to. I changed the TPS as well, the old one would refuse to return to zero and I'd end up at 2% TPS and no idle speed control (AIS motor is disabled above 1% throttle position). So i need to get it out in the driveway and warmed up, then redo the idle speed adjustment.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

I presented this on the forum. One of the guys who pretends to be the moderator just tried to belittle me. After the fact the real moderator asked for photos of the distributor after it was installed. I posted the photo of slotting the shutter wheel. I emailed a reply to efi tech with my findings. No reply. Great product but another big company with crappy service.

 

[JoesEdge]

I presented this on the forum. One of the guys who pretends to be the moderator just tried to belittle me. After the fact the real moderator asked for photos of the distributor after it was installed. I posted the photo of slotting the shutter wheel. I emailed a reply to efi tech with my findings. No reply. Great product but another big company with crappy service.

I blame the crappy service because Edelbrock is pulling their headquarters out of California (probably doesn't make a difference, but I'm bitter). Some of the foundries are still here in California though, like 2 hours south of me.

It used to be nice when they were down the street. Actually, it was nice when Vic Jr. was still alive and we could all go to his annual car show at Vic's Garage. I miss that!

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

I think its sign of the times. Large companies with employees that have a high work load. Not bad people but its the way they run.

 

[Mopar73340]

I presented this on the forum. One of the guys who pretends to be the moderator just tried to belittle me. After the fact the real moderator asked for photos of the distributor after it was installed. I posted the photo of slotting the shutter wheel. I emailed a reply to efi tech with my findings. No reply. Great product but another big company with crappy service.

This doesn’t surprise me. Overall I have had good conversations with the actual forum moderator except when it comes to this topic a couple of years back now. Since I’ve been living with the low amount of timing for a couple years now I’m thankful for the work you and TurboGLH have put into finding a solution.

Now I can’t wait for the rotors I ordered to arrive.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

This doesn’t surprise me. Overall I have had good conversations with the actual forum moderator except when it comes to this topic a couple of years back now. Since I’ve been living with the low amount of timing for a couple years now I’m thankful for the work you and TurboGLH have put into finding a solution.

Now I can’t wait for the rotors I ordered to arrive.

Nate was a great source of knowledge, but he left.

 

[Mopar73340]

Nate was a great source of knowledge, but he left.

I beg to disagree with this. While he may have had lots of information, he was a total ***. He deleted many of my posts and banned me (blocked my IP address) from the site because he disagreed with me on some of these issues. This topic included. I even agreed to disagree with him and asked why my posts were deleted and that post was deleted. I’m glad he’s gone.

 

[BergmanAutoCraft]

I beg to disagree with this. While he may have had lots of information, he was a total ***. He deleted many of my posts and banned me (blocked my IP address) from the site because he disagreed with me on some of these issues. This topic included. I’m glad he’s gone.

I didn’t know that.

 

[TurboGLH]

Weather hasn't been great the last two days, still no test drive yet. Car starts and idles much better is all I know so far.