Engine Timing Danced Around

No matter how hard he tried, El Butchero could not set his timing. Even with is shiny new MSD timing light, the numbers just danced around. What could it be?

I got my new short block a few months ago and really didn't think much about the distributor. I was thinking that I was going from one engine to a new engine that was very similar. HOC ran the engine on their engine stand and set the timing. Once I got the engine home, I also checked the timing and everything looked great. MSD suggests that on normal engines, you set the timing at idle, which might be 12 degrees for example. On performance engines, they prefer you set it at an rpm where you would have full advance. This means you might hold the car at 3000rpm and then set it to 36 degrees. This is what I did and it worked great.

If you set your distributor this way, then the MSD chart guides are actually wrong. I have never seen a post about this but it hit me when fiddling with the unit. On mechanical advance distributors, you generally have bushings and springs. Stop Bushings...these come in 4 colors or sizes and determines the total amount of advance (add this to initial advance to get grand total). red 18 degrees, blue 21, silver 25, black 28. So if you wanted 36 degrees total and you set your initial at 12, you might use the silver to get 25+12 = 37 degrees of total timing.

Springs...these come in 4 colors and thicknesses and determine the rate or acceleration of advance. When talking with MSD tech, they are sort of fuzzy on the proper settings. Their general rule of thumb for performance engines is to run as much advance and at the highest rate without causing detonation. Here is a solid tutorial on this subject

What struck me as odd is...these are incorrect if you use the performance engine method of setting timing. You could now use ANY bushing, since you are setting the max total time. Therefore, the bushing now governs what your idle timing is....things are almost backwards. Take a 36 degree total timing example. Here is what your at idle initial advance would be with the 4 bushings
red.....36 - 18 = 18
blue....36 - 21 = 15
silver..36 - 25 = 11
black...36 - 28 = 8

Your thoughts? I just thought this was an interesting point I had never seen brought up before. I had been out to Cobra U and this is when the distributor was locking at full advance you may recall. I had removed the distributor to fix this snag and then put the unit back in and went to re-time the engine. The light would not focus on a number. The number would just dance around...10 ..30...40..20...30. I thought that it had to be interference and I gave up for the day. I called MSD and talked to friends and they all said "interference". This sort of made sense since I tie my spark wires close BUT I have never had trouble setting it until now. I snipped a few wires apart and then made sure that nothing was around plug #1 and also made triple sure of a good ground on the gun. Same problem...timing would not sit still. Aye Carrumba! Could it be my new plugs? Could it be my new wires? I was at a loss.

I was visiting Dean Woodruff at the HOC trailer and I described my problem to him. Dean said immediately "you know Andy, we have seen that problem lately on two small block SPFs. The distributors had the wrong metal gear and we could not set timing". Dean then said "pull your distributor and look at the gear. It will be sharp as a razor blade if it is the wrong one". The very next day, JBL Richard, who did not know I had asked Dean, also stated that two engine builders he asked, said "check the gear". I called MSD tech again and they still thought it was wire interference but said as a long shot it could be the gear.

Why does HOC Dean make the big bucks? Because he was damn right! I pulled the distributor out this afternoon and felt the gears....holy crap...these are sharp as a razor blades! It is kind of hard to see it in these pictures but the gear teeth have been sharpened to a point rather than staying square-ish Here is a new gear beside the old.

Now, there was one other thing that Dean also mentioned that caught my ear. Dean said that the gears are shaved so finely that they are tiny and get digested in the engine and do not hurt it. Two weeks ago, I drained my oil and noticed that my magnetic oil plug was covered with tiny metal filaments. At first I was in a panic and thought this quick was a giant peace of metal. I then took a paint brush and spread the goop on a clean white mixing board. There was no large chunks of metal to be found...they were all microscopic (ok, there was one larger yet super thin chunk). I was perplexed and thought that it was just the new engine braking in. The first engine did not have a dirty oil plug and so I was at a loss. This all made sense now.

The three choices of gears are iron, steel and brass. If you run am cast iron cam, you need the iron gear. If you run a steel cam, you need a steel gear. And you can run a brass gear with either. You might be asking yourself "why not just use that fancy brass gear?". This is what I thought as well. In speaking with MSD tech, they said that this gear is designed to wear and only lasts 100-200 miles...it is a pure race gear. I asked MSD what gear to use. They said "ask the cam seller".

MSD sort of chased me away. I called Crane and every time I speak to their tech support, I am blown away. They are professional and knowledgeable. I told them my cam and in 3 seconds they said that I needed the steel gear. Since MSD was being a little flakey when I asked about their old gears since I had 3 of them, I decided to ask Crane "do you by chance sell this steel gear?".

Crane tech said "yes we do".

The Butcher then said "there is no way you take AMEX is there?".

Tech support Steve answered "yep, we take that".

Butcher Boy then said "ok, transfer me over to sales".

Crane man replied "I can take that order right here".

Baghdad lad queried "so about a month?"

Crane stated "I have that in inventory now...wait...let me check southern california....YES, I have that in inventory in so cal as well.

I gave the man my AMEX and placed the order for steel distributor gear part #44970-1 for a 0.531 shaft. This was before I even knew my gear was bad, but I figured since I was pulling the distributor, why not swap it just to be safe, even if it isn't it. This phone call took place at 2pm on Wednesday.

I kid you not...I had that damn gear in my hand from UPS Thursday at noon.

Crane Cams Kicks Ass! I believe that my 427w used a f-p-s cam, and it must of been an iron cam. The new crane cam in the 383w is steel. I wrongly assumed all cams were made of the same material. I have always been disappointed in the quality of timing tape available. I was using some moroso tape and I think it was microscopic yellow letters on black. I damaged the tape when a hose clamp got too close and scrubbed off all the tens column =) Timing tape was a mystery to me until young Richard explained to me that it was simply 360 degrees in the circle. For years I thought it was some magical tape that only engine builders knew where the correct digits went. After another hair pulling visit to PepBoys, I decided to build my own timing tape. It's not too hard. It helps if you have a friend named Scott who owns a sign store, but you could also do it with a home printer I think as well. You need two things to make tape

- a drawing program
- a way to print the tape, hopefully onto a sticker.

step 1
Find out the size of your dampener. Fords are usually 6 3/8" or 7". There are a few ways to do this. If you know the diameter ...like 6 3/8, you can just take that and multiply by Pie or 3.14. This will tell you how long to make your drawing. My dampener was 6 3/8 so the distance around the circle is 20" and this is how long I need to draw my rectangle. If you don't want to do all this, take a piece of string or wire and go around the dampener and then measure the length of that string.

step 2
draw a rectangle maybe 0.5" x 20"

step 3
draw 360 little lines spaced evenly. This is usually easiest with the duplicate function in drawing programs. You would always do 36 instead of 360.

step 4
stretch these markers the full length of the rectangle

step 5
play around with the numbers now

step 6
print it.

Now here is the secret trick. It is damn hard to print 20 inches. Why bother? We only need the 40 degrees or so. I opted to make mini tapes since I knew where TDC was and only needed the advance side.

Here are Butcher Tapes revealed! I made many models since I was not sure which one I would like best. I wanted BIG and easy to read tapes. If you want a set of butcher timing tapes for your own, you'll have to convince Scott at SwiftySign to print you a set on the black market. No idea what it will cost. Here is the tape applied nicely to the dampener after a good scrub with brake cleaner. One last pic of the easy to read B-man tape. Tomorrow I will head down to Jorge's machine shop and get him to press off he old distributor gear and install the new one. More on this in the future.

Young Richard thought that it would be a good idea if the butcher double checked with Redline on the oil I was using in my differential and transmission. I believe I was using MT90 in the pumpkin and ATF in the transmission. I emailed Redline tech support with my Ford 8.8 and Tremec 3550 info. They emailed back within a day and said that I was close, but should probably change out both to a more appropriate lubricant. The ford rear-end requires a friction modifier that works with the internal clutches. This is the stuff that makes gear oil stink. It would be a good idea if I went to 75w90 for the differential. Tech support said that ATF was ok in the transmission, but was on the thin side. They suggested MT90. I decided to order up a case of each at RaceSearch and then attempt the fun and exciting oil changes.

After 3 hours of searching for a drain plug, I called Performance Differential in Ontario and asked "where is the drain plug". They informed me that there was none. If you are going to get your gears switched on your rear-end, I suggest running down to the machine shop while the unit is apart and ask them it drill and tap a simple drain plug. This will save you time and anguish in the future when attempting to remove the oil from the unit. I must of tried every pump I could think of. Finally I made progress with the hand drill pump system. After 4 days, I had drained the lubricant from the ford 8.8.

Tremec's are simple to drain with the nice top and bottom plug. They are however, not as nice to fill. To fill both units, I opted for the hand pump system...sort of like what you would find on the West System epoxy cans or at the hair dresser's. After a week of gut busting, the units were as good as new with the new redline. I want to thank my new sponsor "Redline Oil"! What do you mean am anal retentive? Doesn't everyone stack their car bottles in nice little lines? =)

You know I can't resist a new tool. It has been a few weeks and I was itching. I had been putting off this tool for months since it seemed pricey and I was not sure how much fun or use it would be. I finally decided to bite. I had a choice of el cheepo model and then better quality ones. I decided to go for one of the nicer ones like I had seen in Jeg's. I ordered up the Tavia Oil Filter Cutter Opener! I actually found it online at pitstopUSA for about $15 cheaper than Jegs total.

I had been saving up my filters and had three of them. I even had one from pre 427w blow up....I was anxious to see if any mysteries would be revealed. Here was the new unit. This style is basically like a pipe cutter. I placed filter one into the vice and began to destroy it and the Tavia. Whenever a product ships without proper instructions, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Butcher will destroy it rather quickly. Check out the cutting wheel. It seems that the Butcher had done some nice butchering. Fortunately he thought quickly on his feet. Is that wheel not the same wheel used in pipe cutters? Yes! Yes! it was the same. One might wonder how a man who is careful enough to wear surgical gloves, can still bring reduce a cutting wheel to a lump of metal in 17 seconds?

What's this? Upon removing the cutting wheel from the pipe cutter, the butcher was horrified to find a slotted head screw holding the wheel in place. Sidetracked, the butcher ran for his socket head cap screws. After a good big of mangling, filter one was open. Another reason I bought the tool was just to see what the hell is inside a damn oil filter. Do they have magical properties? Here is the empty can. I pried apart the filter elements and this filter looked damn clean. The oil in it was a little dark, but that is because the first oil leaving and engine gets saturated with engine assembly lube. There was no hunks of metal to be found anywhere.

It was time for filter #2 and this time I did not want to bust the blade. The secret is to keep the unit as far on the can as possible and to slowly build pressure, just like cutting pipe. Want to know a kick ass filter? K&N make a terrific filter, mainly because they put a simple nut shape at the end so you can spin the damn things off with a regular wrench. This also allows it to be stuck in the vice nicely. Can I have a drumroll please. Now this oil is a little green. You old time Butcher readers may recall when I had an oil leak and chased with with fluorescent die. This dies stays in the oil and makes it nice and green...glowing green under black light. Quincy medical examiner pushed apart the filter layers and could see that they too were nice and clean.

There has been a lot said on various car sites about various filters, mainly due to that one site where the young lad bought a filter cutter and cranked open a hundred filters and counted paper pleats. Now everyone is running around saying "this filter is way damn better" and that filter "is a big brown turd of a filter". I just personally do not believe this to be true. A micron is a micron. Filters filter down to tiny 10 microns. Engines are far stronger than most of us believe. I just read a chapter in Mark Donahue's "Unfair Advantage". He said that at one of the races, the track had tons of gravel in one corner. The rocks would fly up and lodge in the carburetor butterfly. He said they learnt to blip the throttle on that one corner, so the rock would fall into the engine and get "digested". This was a race car and it was eating rocks for goodness sakes! A rock is a damn ton of microns! I would agree that different filters have different pleat counts and different center hole sizes, but I do not think that has much effect on longevity of the engine. Even the worst and cheapest filters filter down to a minute levels.

I just wanted to prep you with that since I am going to be showing pleats and I can here the oil filter study lovers now "see see, that filter is 100 times better because the pleat count is much greater" =) Here is a fram style filter on the left and a K&N filter on the right. Yes, the K&N does have more thinner filters...but maybe less thicker filters is also just as good. I ripped both apart and the paper seemed similar in each and no chunks of metal were found. One thing that was interesting was that the holes in the center metal unit were larger in the fram and smaller in the K&N. I would use both these filters again. I do like the nut end of the K&N and I have to admit that the K&N unit seems of higher quality, but I think both do the intended task. I did save one filter and will crank it open this week. It is a tall race version of the Fram. I wonder if it will be the same composition as the small race unit I was running.