How much timing is enough

[dlampe]

How can you tell if you are timed right? My pipes are to loud to hear any detonation. On some of these FE motors my friends are running up to 44 degs of advance while my motor guy said to run my 427 at 34 degrees. Whats up with the radical differences?

[HSSS427]

At least that seems to be the typical answer. I'm got my 427 at 36 total: 22 initial and 14 mechanical advance. Have an MSD 6AL and billet distributor. Seems the word I got was set the timing at idle to get as much initial advance in it as you can while still having a good low RPM idle - mine idles at 600 with a Mighty Demon 750. Then put in the appropriate bushing to limit the total advance to around 36-38. There are apparently much more scientific ways to figure it out, but it's also considered a setup secret by many so they don't want to give out all the details. There's also a lot of variables that go into it as well - fuel, compression ratio, ya da ya da ya da....

Seems that one way would be to set it while on a dyno so you could then see what the results were.

Would love to hear a straight forward way to calculate what it should be given a particular set-up vs everyone just throwing out their own numbers.
Thanks!
Scott

[Roscoe]

Once you get your timing set and your carb set right put a vacuum gauge on the carb and do the fine tuning. The gauge should have markings on it so you can get it in the right range.

http://www.theautoist.com/vacuum_guage.htm

Roscoe

[Zoom This]

Generally, FE motors require more advance, e.g., 38-42 degrees due to the flame travel in the combustion chamber burning at slower rates than say, a small block 289-351 head design. Small blocks seem to like 32-34 degrees full advance.

Chassis dyno time will tell you exactly where to put your final full advance at. Just creep up a little at a time and look at your HP and torque readings after each pull.