[JUDGE3]

1979 Trans Am 301 engine original HEI distributer. note; after purchasing I did a tune and the timing was already set in the below described advanced setting.

have never been here: engine placard calls for 12 deg initial timing. in setting it there it acts severely retarded, runs but chugs. so I advance it on the timing mark
14-16-18-20-24 no to very little improvement. I go back to way advanced off the timing marks (see yellow tape pic) where it was and it runs good. -but- overheats on the highway no doubt due to the advanced timing. runs cool in town.

removed the cap today and the weights and all are crusty as this car sat mostly for 10 years. found the connector to the module barely secured and thought this would be the issue. nope. sprayed some wd40 and cleaned up inside. new cap/rotor/wires/plugs.

using the timing light I noticed it was getting advance but does not appear to be enough as to what im used to. (my 455 with dui has 24 degrees advance at 3,000 rpm.) also when moving the advance weights by hand they seem much stiffer than the dui.

I just installed an oem 4 row copper brass radiator in place of the tiny 301 original radiator that was plugged up. it overheated prior on the highway, the big new radiator is masking the problem and at least maintains 220 on the highway now. cool no issue in town.

tried to lay all the info out there, need some help on where to look with the distributer. oh, I had an old flame thrower module I installed to test. engine would not even start. back to the gm module and started but back to the problem. is the gm module bad? any help greatly appreciated I am very curious as to what the heck this is.