318 Timing?

[68satellite]

Hey guys. Just finished the engine swap on my Trailduster. The doner 318 started right up. Just to refresh your memories, I had the questions about the 340 high rise manifold. Put a 600cfm Holley elec/choke on top a spacer/adapter. Threw on a set of Dynomax headers and she runs well. My question is on the timing. The manual says 10 btdc. She pops a little bit at idle. Throttles up with no hesitation or backfire. I was not overly impressed on the test drive. Is there another number I should be aiming for? Has anybody adjusted one of these Holleys before? Thanks.

[Bigfoot]

According to the Mopar Performance Engine instructions for a small block your total mechanical advance timing should be set at 34 deg btdc. Another wards you disconnect the vacuum advance hose and plug it, adj. the distr. to 34 deg btdc at about 2800 rpm (once it stops advancing the timing) and take it for a run. If it pings under load or at high speed then you drop by 2 deg and do it again until you find a point that it no longer pings. Then check you initial timing and see where it is at. When I converted over to electronic ignition from lean burn I wondered about this also and once I found my total advance setting of 32 deg btdc by base was at 16 deg. Walking around the wreckers it was not uncommon to find 318-360’s with a base time of 16 deg so that is what mine is at. You can find the Mopar performance instructions at http://www.dippy.org/main.html under the upgrades section. Once you open the pdf document the instructions for setting up dodge engines is about the 5th page in or so and it tells you exactly what you need to do for the best performance

[BrianU]

An occasionally “pop” at idle may be due to a lean condition. As “Bigfoot” said, set total timing to about 34 degrees total mechanical advance with the vacuum can disconnected.

You should be able to run from 32-36 degrees total mechanical advance with the vacuum can disconnected. Total with the vacuum can connected will be somewhere from 48-52 degrees which can be checked at cruising