Having a nightmare setting the timing on my AZDart. It's a 225, Carter BBS carb. It's a 1966 225 engine (casting # 2463439-22). Nopar electronic ignition. It was running, though badly when I got the carb and choke into "pretty good" shape. I found the vacuum advance diaphragm leaking, so I bought an electronic ignition conversion kit from Mancini Racing. Installed the distributor, got out the timing light, NO START! engine kicks back, but will not start.

OK, lets find the timing mark on the crank pulley. No timing mark on the pulley, only a few pencil/pen markings. OK lets find T.D.C. and start from scratch.

(My buddy has a unique T.C. finder, a tube mounted to an old sparkplug body, with a small balloon on the end of the tube. install device in #1 sparkplug hole, rotate the engine 'til the balloon inflates - bingo! T.D.C.)

The marks on the crank pulley are near the marks on the timing pointer, so we clean the old markings off and put our own mark. Tried to set the timing and finally found a setting that allows the engine to start & run but the distributor had to be turned further than the hold down screw allowed. Reset the plate on the bottom of the dizzy, moved the plug wires one tower clockwise, reinstalled the unit and turned it so that the distributor gear was a notch, then two notches further advanced. No JOY! cannot turn the dizzy far enough clockwise to get the engine to start because the nipple on the vacuum advance can hits a red bracket of some kind attached to the inner fender.

Finally called it a night Your experience, opinions and/or wild a$$ guesses are sought. Thank you all, and good night.

ATB

BC

_________________
'64 Dart GT convertible, 64 Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust (the Az Dart) & a sixty THREE Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust. (future project)
Early Dart Disorder (EDD) is real, and I've got it!

and you are going to make fun of my chopstick!

I had the same problem, and I just kept doing the same: Find TDC, Set Distributor(Move rotor to correct 4pm position), but I never moved the plug wires around??? I finally got it to work, by trial and error.

_________________
1964 Dart GT

Some aftermarket dist. pick-ups are wired backwards and cause the ign. to fire 20-30 degrees off from the correct phasing.

_________________
V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

The balloon is a nice idea, but we need more accuracy. If the damper has slipped there will be a lot of trial and error. What I would do to eliminate the trial and error is use the chopstick to find about 1/2" down from either side of TDC. Mark those two locations on the damper and half-way in between is true TDC. Turn the engine to the verified TDC, install the distributor in the engine with the rotor pointing to #1 and then rotate the distributor body until the pickup lines up with the reluctor. That will get you timed darn close to TDC where you can start the engine and add a little advance from there.

_________________
Joshua

My original issue, boiled down was:

Cannot turn the dizzy far enough clockwise to get the engine to start because the nipple on the vacuum advance can hits a red bracket of some kind attached to the inner fender.

MAJOR brain fart!! Neither of us has much previous experience with /6s. V8s don't have clearance issues like I touched on in my first post (the red bracket).
What we completely missed is that the first step HAS to be rotating the dist body so that the vac can has plenty of room to move wherever it needs to.

(OK, folks, you can quit the snickering now! I finally figured it out and the rest of you were kind enough to not point out my ignorance.)

Once the dizzy can be turned enough, the rest of the setup is a piece of cake.
Thanks, bigslant6fan, and asking which ones and why is pointless. The only way I see to find out is to cut and swap the pickup wires and observe timing changes.
Trial and error, I think it's called. Interesting enough, we were thinking that the best result we got last night was about 20 degrees off our makeshift timing mark.

The car is 40 miles away and we're not going out there today, but I'm looking forward to a brighter day tomorrow!

ATB

BC

_________________
'64 Dart GT convertible, 64 Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust (the Az Dart) & a sixty THREE Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust. (future project)
Early Dart Disorder (EDD) is real, and I've got it!

Thanks, Danarchy, I'm eating crow, and having a slice of humble pie for dessert. At least is was my cohorts idea, and not mine. He doesn't have a piston stop either, and I just ordered one.
How many failures did Edison have getting that darn lightbulb to work? I think trial and error (which for me usually means several errors) is perfectly adequate!
I've learned more that way than doing it by the book, having it work just fine and moving along.

ATB

BC

_________________
'64 Dart GT convertible, 64 Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust (the Az Dart) & a sixty THREE Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust. (future project)
Early Dart Disorder (EDD) is real, and I've got it!

More internet prowling led me to these tidbits on the MSD Ignition site:
And this:
Looks like we're closing in on it. I'll post results.

ATB

BC

_________________
'64 Dart GT convertible, 64 Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust (the Az Dart) & a sixty THREE Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust. (future project)
Early Dart Disorder (EDD) is real, and I've got it!