I've been down on power since the new distributor and have been playing with the timing. I tried one tooth forward and back and it would hardly run so I'm on the right tooth. I've marked it and been slowly rotating the distributor clockwise (advance?) I've got most of the power back that I had, my question is when do I stop? I still have a ways left in the groove for more movement. Can I put in too much advance? Will I hurt anything. It just seems to get better with more clockwise movement.
I tried counterclockwise and it got worse, the lack of power felt strange, like it was being choked, like it couldn't get air, or like I was climbing a long hill with a 4 cylinder lol.
This is the first vehicle that I've been able to do this kind of fine tuning with, it's very fun I just don't want to over do it.
Thanks

did you just swap in a new dizzy or was there more done? i know at our altitude our base timing is different, 5btdc if memory serves but dont quote me. once you have your base set then you can fiddle around with your advanced timing. my advice is get ahold of frankr (if hes still on here, ive been gone awhile), hes the genious when it comes to timing.

There's a limit. It's called spark knock. Hear any yet?

Spark advance is like wing shooting birds with a shotgun. You gotta have some lead for the bird to be there when the shot gets there. The burning of the fuel/air always happens at the same speed, and you want the maximum cylinder pressure to happen at the most favorable crankshaft angle to get the most leverage advantage off the crank throw and piston pressure. This means you have to start the burn before the piston gets to the top of the stroke (Before Top Dead Center, or btdc) for the burn to develop the max pressure with the piston an inch or so down the bore, and the faster the engine is running, the more you have to advance the spark btdc. If you advance it too far for the engine speed, the max pressure will happen before the piston hits the top, so the cylinder pressure works against the engine rotation. Too little advance (too much retard) means you waste power by burning the mixture after the piston has already started down the bore, and it feels like a lot of power loss, and the exhaust overheats because the fire is still burning when the exh valve opens.

I'd set it with a light to the factory setting (buy or rent a timing light) with maybe a degree or two of additional advance at most.

You are most likely to hear spark knock around the torque peak, say 3000-3500rpms. Sounds like rocks rattling in a coffee can.

What Eddy said - and:

1) Since you've been moving the gear teeth around, before you do anything else, set the engine to TDC compression stroke and correctly align the distributor rotor.

2) Ground the distributor plug pin and set base timing to 5-7* BTDC..... no more, no less. 5* is plenty. You won't magically make any more power with >7* on a 3.0L and you may damage your engine.

Frank

Ok guys. Thanks very much.

Yup to what Frank said. As a general rule, more advance gives you faster accel at the cost of cruise power and fuel economy, at least until you get too much and something goes blooey.