[67 455 Bird ragtop]

Hope this makes sense and doesn't sound stupid.

Previously when I was running an old point distributor I could connect power to the coil and dist while it was still on the engine stand. Rotate the engine so the timing mar was where I would initially like it to be when I first cranked it. Normally about 2-4 degrees retarded. Once running I would advance it to here it needed be and break in the motor. We used to call it static timing when it was on the stand. Getting ready to setup an MSD ready to run dist on my new motor with a blaster ss coil. Is this same technique possible with the newer dists?? Or doe the dist need to actually be spinning to properly work ?? Can I simply hook up the dist to the coil and apply power per the instructions then simply rotate the dist to get a spark and lock in my initial start timing ????

[chuckies76ta]

If I were you, I would find TDC on plug #1. It's been called blowing #1. Thumb over #1 spark plug hole. That will get you compression stroke when it blows your thumb off the spark plug hole. I would set my balancer at approx 17 degrees BTDC. I would then drop my Distributor in where I wanted plug #1 to fire. Start engine and check/set initial timing with timing light.

I'm not sure what your asking but I'll take a stab at answering. If you have the dist out of the engine and apply 12 volts to it and have it hooked up and grounded, I believe it will fire if you turn it by hand. plugs would need to be in and coil connected. Dist would need to be grounded. Not sure what this would accomplish.

Once connected, the MSD Dist will fire every time the reluctor wheel goes by the pickup in the Dist. You can pick any one of the 8 terminal on the msd cap for plug #1 while setting inital timing. but you have to drop Dist in for that terminal. hope that makes sense.

[lust4speed]

Agree. I just set the balancer to 14 or so degrees advanced and drop in distributor with the rotor aligned with the forward edge of the terminal. This usually gives me about 6° initial when it fires off and close enough where it runs fine and I can fine tune the timing.

While you are timing the engine after getting it fired, see if your distributor tosses in another 12 degrees around 2100-2600 RPM in addition to the normal mechanical advance. I've had two new MSD Ready-To-Run distributors that electronically tossed in more degrees. I removed springs from the weights so the distributor would immediately go to max advance off idle and still seeing the mystery 12° added in. Problem comes in that say you are using the black bushing for 18° engine degrees mechanical advance. If that additional 12° I'm seeing is really there then the distributor total advance is actually 30° which doesn't leave much room for dialing in initial advance. Other bushings would leave even less room.

My Sun distributor machine sees it, my timing light sees it on a running engine, and my ears can hear the RPM increase when the additional timing kicks in. MSD tech says they don't see a problem on the distributor we returned. Then again, MSD has always refused to admit they have a problem. Friends and I have sent dead boxes in to them, they return them with a note that they found nothing wrong, and magically the box works when we put it back on. I'm thinking that makes their failure rate record much cleaner.

Anyway, I'm interested to see if you find the same thing, or something is just weird around here.

[chuckies76ta]

Morning Lust4speed. In my case, I haven't seen any issues with any MSD Dist that I've used or for that matter any one else that I know off. I usually have had to make a custom bushing to get my initial where I want it. I usually work from my total backwards. I make a custom bushing to give me what I want for mechanical advance. I having seen any issues with the dist adding any timing on it's own.
Seeing your running a ready to run which has the vacuum can, I'm wondering if that is causing any issue?

[lust4speed]

No vacuum hooked up, and these are distributors for friends. Just happen to have two spanking new ones on current builds and getting the curves set up. I had a third engine on a run stand that just completed break-in with an HEI and after seeing the oddity on the distributor machine I dropped the MSD distributor on that engine. I could still see the gain on the balancer with the timing light as I slowly went up the RPM range and could see and hear the RPM jump.

Never observed an advance problem with any other MSD product including their standard distributors, nor any of their boxes including the new digital box offerings. I also agree that if you set max timing at RPM and the idle timing is where you would expect it to be then your distributor doesn't have the possible glitch I am experiencing. When you get a chance would you just slowly go through the RPM range from 2k to 3k and see if it bumps. I can dial in a specific RPM on the machine and it will skip back and forth at that RPM, and that is with the weights locked and no vacuum in play. I'd blame my old machine but seeing the same thing on the run stand has me wondering if there isn't a problem with both distributor modules.

[chuckies76ta]

Haven't had a chance to check timing with car running. Sorry. I do remember seeing the timing bouncing around when setting. I thought that was normal for the setup. For that reason I'm going to a crank trigger on the new 505 engine.