timing question

[badass belvedere]

hey guys i have a question about my timing. ill give as much info as i can on my motor. i have a 440 freshly rebuilt from the ground up. je pistons fordged aluminum. aluminum 440 source stealth heads making aprox 10.5 to 1 compresion. comp cams cam shaft 230 at 50 i believe my cam card is in my glove box. 3 bolt cam shaft with timing gears on it it has 4 deg of advance on the camshaft. mallory unilite distributor with mechanical advance edelbrock dual plane intaked and a speed demon 750 with vac secondaries. my question is this i know im supposed to be at 34 degrees at 3000 but what should be my initial timing my research has turned up only the stock answer of 10 deg but what some people have told me is that is going to be too low. and my second question is this how would i check to make sure im at 36 deg at 3000 rpm im using a pro comp harmonic balancer

 

[superbeedave]

Seeing that no one has replied to your post I will give you an idea on where to start off at. From what I can gather with trial and error and information your initial timing should be around 16-18 degrees with that 230 duration @ .05. And you should be able to use your balancer if it has the degree marks. With a timing light on the marks bring up your speed ( with distributor vacuum plugged ). All 36 degrees should be in by 3000 rpm's. Your mechanical advance should also start to come in between 1200-1400. I am pretty
sure all these specs may be a little different from automatic to manual trans. Remember,
this is just a start! Hope this helps. Also you will probably have to rework the distributor to get these numbers.

 

[Mopar To Ya]

Don't trust any marked damper until you make up a piston stop ( I drill out an old spark pug and tap for a 5/16 bolt) and find your exact TDC, rig up a new pointer if need be. You will probably need close to 20 degrees initial and 34 total which means your distributor will most likely need some travel limited

 

[Cranky]

I would hope that however built the engine found true TDC and marked the balancer sometime during the setting of the cam. Each engine generally likes a different timing curve and will be different depending on the combination and actual compression ratio and cylinder psi. The lower this is, the more timing they generally like. You can check your cranking psi easily enough. I also like my timing to be all the way in well before 3000 but your may or may not like that.

 

[67 B-body]

Buy or borrow a timing light that has a degree dial. You can set it at 30deg on the gun, run your engine up to the point in which you want full advance and the timing mark should be at zero. Like mentioned above, you might have to adjust or limit the max advance to get full advance and still have base timing advance set as needed. also dont forget about mechanical advance weights and springs.