Stamey

Setting the timing is a veru exact process, henc eht dial indicator, and the barring tool is more exacting, as well as it allows you to exert more torque on the high-compression engine. If you have good compression the damper bolt will not be easy to turn. Of course, if you turn it slow enough, allowing the compresson to leak off, it will be OK.

Chris

46mech

I can vouch for Stamey's recommendation to take it to Forest City Diesel. Keith knows his stuff! 14 deg was the stock setting for mine and it's set at 16 now; I get 21-22mpg on the hwy and 15.5 -17 city..... depending on the weight of my foot.

stock600

Ill have to settle for the dampner bolts, with my destroked plate the starter is now on the pass. side and that hole you were talking about is no longer there. Like you said you have to turn it a litttle slower due to the compression bleed off - but it works.

Yellow Yota

Is 16 too much for the stock HG? I want to go as far as safe with a stock motor (other than fueling mods), without any bad effects.

My 98 auto is 14* stock as well. I think my friend's 97 5 speed is 12.5

Lundee

Some say 18 is max some say 16 is I know one thing, retarding the timing sucks! My truck belched white smoke for ten minutes after I quit cranking on it. I'm sticking @ 15.5 til' the studs are in them I'm going to 18* I've heard they start hard after that

Katmandu

My truck is set at 16.5* and running great.

About (20) MPG Highway as well.

govspringbounce

17 degrees here ... 24 hwy

stock600

Found the alt. nut also works well to turn the engine over, 22mm i think it was.

Yellow Yota

Getting mine set to 16* tomorrow while I'm at work.

stock600

Well finally got i fiqured out and set today. I got another oil pan bolt and drilled it out to the od of the dial ind. and made a bracket to bolt to the head, seemed to work well. I checked it first to see were it was, found it to be at .180" wich i fiqured at around 14.5*. Once i finally got the shaft nut loose it [it popped loose] i rechecked it and it was setting at .206/.207" wich is between 17.5 and 18.0* i just left it there and tightend the nut to 144 lbs and rechecked it was still correct. I hope this to be a pretty good start for all the mods in the motor ie. big inj., full cuts, etc.... PS. Thanks again for who suggested the oil pan plug- that was a great idea. I dont know what the kit would look like that you can buy for doing this but i dont see it working any better than this setup. Later Ryan

aksparkey01

Thats all i use is the 22mm on the alt and the 15mm on the ballancer. alternator to go cc and balancer to go clockwise. seems to work fine for me.

stock600

ya same here, it would be nice if the alt, would allow for CW rotation also but oh well. I now see how some say the pin isnt so accurate but its still not not bad. With the pin pushed in for TDC i found if i moved either way it would allow for about .009". To be as accurate as i could i used a mirror to center the dot in the hole then marked it with a silver marker on the dampner and one of the sensor studs. But still that little diff. from my math could be nearly a degree and a half. { .205=17.5* and .217=19*} most others dial indicators must read in mm because ive not seen it broken down in inches on here before

Yellow Yota

Got it set to 16 today. Stock should have been 14. Should I have noticed much difference? Can't tell any by seat of the pants. I'll check my mileage, and also my EGT under a heavy load when traffic isn't so thick.

Tate

Metric dials aren't that common, but I think they are the better way, unless you have a dial thats good to .0005". Each 0.1mm is equal to 0.0039", and the dial I have is good to .01mm, or .00039". Makes it much easier to be acurate.

How much was your destroked adapter? Over on 4btswaps.com, there is a slew of Ford and GM adapters for small block trannies, and they probably would have the hole for the barring tool. Bad thing about the GM adapter is they put a 6 degree tilt on the engine, but thats more aesthetics than anything else.

One more thing you might look at, since on a race truck you might be changing timing often, PDW has an adjustable pump gear that you can change timing on in about 15 minutes. The gear is two pieces, so you can seperate the hub from the OD of the gear, and it has about 18 different holes that are seperated by 0.5 degrees.

taildragger

Got mine set to 15 or so, blew the head gasket about 4 months later....

With it at 15, I get around 22mpg at 75 with my camper on, and about 20mpg with a mix (its been a long time since I've driven a full tank of just highway). I won't complain at all about it.