Question For Eufaula

[67hat34c]

Eufaula, you said you replaced points with electronic moduel. I am guessing you have mallory distributors and you installed pertronix? if so you should not have had to turn timing back to 0. you are loosing power, needs to fire before top dead center.

I am guessing the reason you have backfiring is your distributors are warn out. We did same conversion and had same result, found the springs etc that controll the mechanical advance to be warn out. pulled distributors and mailed to mallory in carson city nevada. they rebuilt for about 70 each. bearings,bushings, springs keepers etc.

Here is Mallory's tech support line in Ohio, you can call and get # for the Carson City factory where they do the rebuilds. 216.688.8300, ext 500

 

[Eufaula]

Thanks for the info. I replaced port and stbd. engines distributors with electronic controled. The paper inside the box of the new distributor states to set the timing to "0" from "10" so I did and the engines starts soon as I push the starter and no backfiring. Warm up engines and I am ready to go. But, I will call the number you have and find out if I am correct. I purchase the distributors from Jim Green's High Performance shop, I will go there and asked for the correct degrees to set these 7.4 Ford engines. I could be very wrong on this yes. I kept the paper works for the distributors when I get to the boat I will pull them out and maybe patch to you the statement from the
installation instruction.

Again thanks.

 

[67hat34c]

if you replaced the entire distributor then the instructions are most likely correct. I replaced the points with the Pertronix Moduel that fits inside the old distrubutor...if i was to do again i would have done the same thing you did.

 

[MikeP]

Most naturally aspirated V8's respond well to a total advance of around 34-36 degrees. Usually there is anwhere between 6-15 degrees of static timing and the rest is added by the distributer/electronics. Static timing is the "normal' timing setting we think of when someone times an engine. Retarded timing will help starting. Although I don't know anything about the specific product, I suspect that if they want you to set it at 0, the electronics must be adding all the advance instead of the "rest" of the advance.

The important part is that the ignition deliver the optimum total advance for the engine - the static timing is much less critical.

I agree that if there is no electronic automatic advance, 0 degrees (TDC) will not produce the proper spark timing and may cause the engine to overheat (a classic symptom of retarded timing).

 

[67hat34c]

sounds like Eufaula's system must be doing all timing electronicaly. The pertronix system that i installed is good but what he has sounds better.