FormulaWolf

Car: 89 Firebird Formula
Engine: Stock L03 305
Fuel system: Road Demon 525 (TBI tossed out due to error code pain)
Electrical: Accel HEI Supercoil with vac advance
Timing: Set to zero
Carb A/F Mixture screws: 14. whatever, set by emissions tech on their machines
Trans: 700R4

So I'm tweaking with my timing that was way off. I think someone may have used the distributor as a hand rest as it seems to have been set to 41% advanced! Its still hard to believe, maybe I'm doing something wrong to get that number and please tell me if I am. Basically I pull the vac advance and plug the carb, set the timing advance dial on the timing light to 41, attach the clamp to plug #1 point and shoot to find the mark sitting at zero. Bear in mind if I set the timing light to zero the mark goes way off to the passenger side so far that its close to not even being visible.

So I set it to 12% advanced and took it for a test drive. It ran a lot better, more torque and hp. Then I set it to 10, 8, 3, then 0. (Any lower was to low, rough idle, sounds bad, dies. Zero is lopey sounding and wont die) Each time I retard the timing the car gained torque and more top end hp. Even at highway speeds from 60 to 90 it was climbing as a 305 should climb. I then realized that I forgot to hook the vacuum advance back up! So I hooked it up and the car ran slower. Disconnected and plugged it and it instantly ran faster! There is a slight bog when it is floored but its less than half a second, less than the time it would take to actually shift into a gear it seems.

Could the curve just be dialed in without a need for the vac advance? Is there any harm in just leaving it disconnected? It seems to be running strong without. I cant imagine squeezing anymore torque or high end hp with the vac advance but who knows. Any comments are welcome.