I fired up Old Blue today so I could move her out of the way to get to my blower motor parts and take them to the Machine shop. She had been sitting for a couple of months and fired up after some very minimal coaxing. While I was loading up stuff I let her run for a while. I would have gone for a spin but the front seats are out at the moment and I don't think the cops would have appreciated me riding around on a bucket :D . Anyway, I was gone for a couple hours and when I got back Old Blue didn't want to start. Seemed like the timing was off. Sure enough a quick adjustment of the MSD ditributor and she fired up. Got out the timing light (cheapo Sun) and the timing was way too far off(retarded) but the car was running fine:confused: Tried to bring the timing back up to 16 degrees at idle and it would cough and die before even getting close. Another thing I noticed is the timing was "jumping" around. Why would the initally start fine and then after warming up need the timing adjusted to start after warm. It would turn over but add some throttle movement and the motor would get dragged way down (before the adjustment) After putting the timing way out of wack(counter clockwise away from the timing tab the car would start easily but the timing would be jumping around.
I am going to dig out my other timing light(dial) tomorrow and check it with both. If the timing is jumping around with both could it be my MSD box or distributor? Do you think the timing chain jumped because of being way off? It seems to me it couldn't with the jumping around that is happening.

BTW I know about the MSD imcompatibility with dial style timing lights but the one I am using now is not a dial type.

Any ideas or helpful comments appreciated. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I am having a similar problem but I am using msd's boost timing and ignition box combination. Car ran fine then on the same day it didn't. I think/ rather I am pretty confident that the box is causing the engine to retard all the time. It's a mystery to me, and I'm too big to crawl in the box to figure out whats going on.

Jeff, I don't know if there is a hard and fast rule on compatibility. I used a "cheap" Acton Summitt dial back and it doesnt error. Some say it should. But I checked timing right after MSD install and it didn't budge. Some EE out there should know why, or exactly what circuit causes the error. I would doubt the light.

It sounds like your distributor gear is worn. People always seem to think the chain streches.Roller cams are very hard on the gear.

Finally pulled the distributor out day. The magnetic pickup and and the toothed gear on the dist shaft are both extremely corroded. The drive gear looked great. Happen to have a spare so I stabbed it in and once the timing was set no more jumping around. Any good ideas on keeping the corrosion from happening? I used to do the 4 wheeler trick (WD40 under the cap area)on my 4x4s when I was heavy into offroading. Think that would work for this too? How hard is it to change that timing gear on the distributor shaft? Should I just send it to MSD to have it fixed?
TIA for any help and the previous help too smile.gif

Glad to hear you found the cause of the trouble.

I saw the MSD reluctor for sale on Jeg's site the other day, but it ain't cheap (at least not by my standards).