Don't know if this is part of the problem, but have a post in to MSD to see what they say. Rust and little metal particles flying around inside your distributor doesn't seem like a good thing to me.
Determined that the BLUE bushing is what's installed with the 2 heavy silver springs. ID'd the bushing color by process of elimination as it looks rusted also. Appears the builder just left the out of the box set-up in the unit.
So all this apparently equals about 21 deg mechanical advance with the slowest advance curve. On the MSD chart it shows all in at 5500rpm. So looks like I had mid to high 40s total advance, but it wouldn't all be in till 5500.
I think I'm going to try the following:
Black Bushing = 18 deg mechanical advance
Light Silver and Light Blue springs = all in at 3200rpm
Initial timing = 18
Total advance = 36
Still have to verify the timing marks are at TDC. Motorhead - what method do you use for determining TDC? The most common I see is to use a piston stop in the plug hole, bring the cylinder up to it with normal rotation, mark that on a timing wheel (I'm assuming I can just mark the harmonic balancer vs using a degree wheel), crank the engine the other way till the cylinder hits again, mark that spot, split the difference and that is TDC.
I need to check the valve lash as well on the driver side. Did the passenger side, but got honey do'ed after that and the engine cooled off, so have to finish up.
Thanks!
Scott
