Hey all, a friend at work recently purchased a '32 Ford 3 window with a 6-71 blown 454. He's looking for some basic tuneup advice, since a couple weeks ago his distributor clamp decided to loosen it's grip, and let the distributor spin on him. I've asked him a few basic questions, such as how much boost, how's it run now under boost, etc., to gather info. He says it's making about 10lbs at full boost. Motor is supposed to be putting out close to 900hp at crank. It's definitely healthy sounding. I'm thinking he'll probably be best off with around 28-30 degrees at full advance, but I haven't had a chance to check it yet. I'm thinkin' he's going to need about half that at idle, too. So I want to check the total mechanical that's already set in the distributor, an MSD.

Anyone want to offer some tips? It's mostly a cruiser, he doesn't race it. Is my thinking on the right track? The only blower and turbo motors I work on are diesels, not much help here. ;)

That engine is likely to run best with a locked distributor at 28 degrees. Most blower engines actually run worse if you run "half that at idle". I once built a blower big block that ran 100 degrees cooler exhaust temperature simply by locking the distributor at 28 degrees rather than having an advance curve.

Oh yeah, your friend is likely making a few hundred less crank horsepower at 10 lbs boost on that 6-71 454. Nothing wrong with 700+ horsepower. With a roots blower the bottom end torque is directly related to the throttle opening - which always skews the ass-o-meter guess of horsepower.

Thomas

hi there.going with bomber,locked out 28-30 degrees.i`ve had a few blown bbc engines and the first was a 467 with 8-71.it made about 800 hp.in my malibu(3300 lbs street car)it went 9.62/142 as best with timing locked at 28 degrees.i tried other tune-ups but it didn`t make more power.now i drive a 540 +8-71 with 30 degrees locked and it works well and now i believe i`m in 900 hp zone.

Thanks for the info, guys. I'm going to get in there in the next week or two, take a look at it, see if it's already locked or not. He's just worried, because he didn't have anything to go on when he needed to get it back running again. As far as his hp numbers, I guess he was told by the previous owner that it dyno'd that at the crank, but he could've been boasting just a bit. It's definitely up there, from what little playing around I've seen him do with the car.

i have found it best to lock and set at 32-34