I'm going to set it up now at 18 initial, 36 total with about 50 all in with vacuum advance hooked up. I'll tinker with advance can to give me about 24 initial. That should be the sweet spot. It did run smoother with vacuum advance hooked up, so I'm not giving up yet.
Hang on, that 2832 is a small cam; with an advertised of about 274/278/110.
With neither the Hughes 2330, nor their 3037, did I need to run them on manifold vacuum. And I see no reason to do that. If you have an automatic trans I could see the engine being ok with that, if you also have a higher stall TC.
But if your engine is stuck with a sub2000 stall, or a manual trans,or hi-compression iron heads,then that idea is IMO, not very good. And neither is running 18* initial.
But if your TC is a 2800 or better than it don't give a rip, so have at it.
My 2330 was almost dead smooth at 14* initial, and it would idle just fine down to 5*. I loved that cam.
My 3037 is not quite as smooth at still 14*, but still goes down to 5* and will pull the car around the parking lot at 550 rpm with a 10.97 starter gear (manual trans).
The biggest problem I have found, with a manual trans, is the engine gets a little sensitive to small throttle changes, making it difficult to drive slowly yet smoothly. The lack of timing, makes her more docile. You might not notice the jumpiness, but your wife may refuse to ride with you; mine did. So I tamed it for her. This is also more noticeable when running 4.10s than say 3.23s. With the more performance oriented gears a small torque increase (due to a small increase in throttle opening), rockets the car forward. Then with a manual trans, compression braking instantly slows the car; so you end up with a lot of seesawing.
Of course with an automatic, this behavior will likely get lost in the fluid coupling,IDK, I've not had such.
So after I get the T-port sync set up, with modest idle-timing, I bring the mechanical in to about 25/28* at 2500/2800, then bring the rest in slower to be all in shortly
after 3200. This will smooth the power delivery, and it lets me run 87E10( aluminum heads and 175/190psi). You may be thinking WTH. But hey, it's a streeter, if I need more power, I just open the throttle further. When I'm getting on it, I only pass thru that zone once, and it's only in first gear,and the tires are always spinning anyways.
As to economy, yes theoretically you will get better fuel economy around town if you run more timing. But this assumes two things; 1) you are not seesawing on the throttle, and 2) you have a Vcan, cuz without it your economy is crappy anyway.
With a 24*Vcan you will be able to far surpass your engines part-throttle timing needs around town. And with 3.55s your cruise rpm might be 65=2800(or more), so in my case, I have 28*@2800 there, plus 22* in the can equals 50*, which would be plenty for iron heads@165/170psi.
But just to re-iterate this is for a manual trans, and/or a low-stall TC, or for any engine that is asked to pull from idle to about 2400rpm.
Your carb can be modified to have a sparkport, I have installed them on others.
Get your T-port synced and your tip-in will smooth right out. And for me, a smooth idle with a performance cam is not what I want,lol. I want it to shake and rattle and sound three sizes bigger than it is. Yours should idle real smooth at 850/900,and sound ready to rock at 550/600. But there is no reason to idle it much over 700. If an automatic, and it doesn't like being put into gear,you have a T-port/initial timing issue. (assuming the PCV is hooked up and working, and you have no air getting into the engine anywhere that it's not supposed to be getting in,lol, and that your valves are closing).
And that's AJ's Opinion
Anyway, I have a 727 with about a 3000 stall and 3.91 gears. I use five gallons of 110 racing fuel with 15 gallons of 93 with each fill up (plus ethanol treatment). It idles at about 850 in park and about 700 in gear. As for initial timing, for whatever reason, I need to run at least 16 initial. That's the floor. I guess some 340s are like that. Thanks again (though I must admit I have no idea what T-port means).
