I'm sure some of the old schoolers or someone with some know how can help me out with this one! I took my 1960 F100 with 223 inline six, Clifford intake, headers,and weber carb out for her maiden voyage (after rebuild) today and I am having issues keeping her running. She died every time I had to stop. I am a novice at this but to me it sounded like it was missing and I had some back firing. It ran great in the higher rpm range but stumbled on take off. I timed the engine with a timing light to 4deg. BTDC like the shop manual said but, I'm beginning to think non-stock engines have non-stock timing(duh). Can anyone give me some tips on tuning by ear. What am I listening for?
Do you have a vacuum guage? If you do, here's what I do. With the vacuum advance removed and plugged, I slowly advance the distributor until I reach the highest vacuum on the guage. Then, I retard it just a tad and that should be real close.
Hard to know for sure, but I'm thinking you have more of a carburetor issue, like maybe a vacuum leak or something not right in the carb. Don
Brady, Do you have a points distributer? Are the points set correctly? A lot of fellas use a va***m gauge to set their timming, it is an old way of doing it. I can't remember the range that you are shooting for. I have a marked va***m in the garage that i will dig out when I go out there and give it a look, then get back to you. I don't normally use a va***m gauge or a light. You just have to know what your engine is saying and I don't know how to describe it to you. One thing that you can do is get your engine warm and then advance your spark until it sounds right and shut it off. now try and start it without touching the peddle, if it kicks against the starter you have too much lead back it of a smidge and try again until it starts well. Sounds like a dumb way but until you know the language the engine is speaking you will have to try it a different way.
I do it just like P n B says. When you hit that sweet spot the engine just cleans out and sounds healthy. Don
I dont know how accurate this is but an old gear head used to say to put a cup of water on the air cleaner and time the motor so it ran as smooth as possible. The water shows how rough the motor is running.
I just stand real close to the fender...real close! Turn the distributor 'til it doesn't feel good any more...tighten it down.
PnB this is exactly what I wanted to know. I do have a points distributor and I will check the points again. I noticed when timing the engine that 10deg sounded soo much smoother but thought that it wasn't correct so I set it to 4. The only place that I think I could have a vac*** leak is at the distributor on the vac advance line. The local parts house didn't have the advance line fittings.
You didn't mention what distributor you are running. If it is the original Load-0-matic it will not work with any carburetor other than the stock set up and will require something with some centrifugal advance.
Timing by ear and timing by a vacuum gauge are similiar. I use a vacuum gauge if available, simply because you can diagnose a lot of issues with a vacuum gauge by reading it correctly and it will let you know a lot about the condition of your upper end.
http://autospeed.com/cms/***le_Using-a-Vacuum-Gauge-for-Engine-Diagnostics/A_2393/article.html Doing things like this can make you better at actually diagnosing issues, instead of just a guy who replaces parts and hopes for the best.
A 60 has the conventional vac advance. I have not used a timing light in 30 years. I advance the distributor until it runs reasonably well. I keep on advancing it until it pings under a load and then back it off until it no longer pings. This takes into account the monkey piss that we get for fuel today. Going by the book for a 50 year old ignition system can be misleading when the recommendations were made expecting a higher octane gas than we get today. That's probably not a big concern for a 223 6 cyl but that's how I've been doing it for many years. Be sure to set the points before you set the timing. If you set the timing and then adjust the points, you just changed the timing again. I'm not sure that we can get the same octane gas across the country today.
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