MSD 6AL Advance Springs

[st thomas]

I am thinking of changing my springs to blue and replacing the heavy silver springs that come installed in the 6AL. I want my advance to be complete at under 3,000 rpm. I am hoping to get better low end performance.

My aim is to have about 14 degrees of intial timing and having the MSD advance 21 more for a total timing of 35 degrees fully advanced at uunder 3,000 rpm

Has anybody done anything similar. Have you changed the springs. Am I on a slippery slope???

[Jon Miller]

Hi St,
The 6AL is the red box with the wires coming in and out. You may want to check the distributor for a correct model number so that the people that know something about springs and stuff can give a good answer.

-Jon

P.S. The only heavy silver springs that I know about are the big chrome 600 in/lb ones that I installed under the front of the car last night....

[Mike Simard]

It does seem to be the consensus to use lighter springs to have the advance come in sooner. Also important is to limit the total advance range of the weights as much as possible to allow you to have around 20 degrees initial. That makes for nice off idle response in a typical carbed cobra engine.

[st thomas]

It is an MSD Ford Billet Distributor part number 8584

[st thomas]

I currently have the blue bushng installed which yields 21 degrees of extra timing.

There is a Black bushing that only yields 18 degrees that would allow me to add 3% to my initial timing perhaps make the idle better is this a good idea?

[chuckbrandt]

I have a roller cam 302 in another vehicle that I did the same thing to. It liked 20 degrees initial a lot, really woke it up.

Lighter springs brought all the advance in by 3000 rpm. The black bushing limits it to 38 degrees total.

You just need to experiment with it, give it all it wants as long as you don't start hearing detonation.

It really depends on what cam you have, you may not be able to go with that much initial if you have a mild cam.

Chuck

[392cobra]

With the Ford crate 392w I had for 2 years and now the 418w, I ran the blue bushing w/ blue springs.

I only have about 400 miles on the 418w with the blue/blue and have been thinking about going with the black bushing to get my initial advance up to 18* vs 15*.

Just going from the two heavy silver springs to the blue will wake up your engine a lot.

[cuda66273]

Be careful guy's, your getting into some dangerous detonation territory here recommending chages to the timing events without knowing all the details of the application.

You can go here:
http://www.4secondsflat.com/Technica...rburetion.html
and read several articles that will help understand timing events, the Mission Ignition article addresses all ignition systems and should be very helpful in determing where and why your timing events should be set at.

Study the chart I wrote on the bottom of the page, if you have any questions I'll be happy to discuss them with you

Don
503-627-0728

[grego37]

there are many spring combos you can go with (rate of advance)
they're in the msd manual and also their website.
I was told you want the fastest rate poosible, but if you hear detonation, your rate of advance is too fast, back down to the next lowst spring combonation.

Each application is different, this goes for timing too.
see what the motor likes.
good luck

[What'saCobra?]

Jon
You should have put your 600 in/lb springs in your distributor after all. In your front end, it must make the car look a little low and very raked indeed.

Unles you meant to type 600 lb/in?