440 timing, please HELP!!

[katieladan]

Hey all, I recently got my dream car a 1968 RT 440 charger. The problem I am having is that I can't seem to get the timing right. My main issue is that I do not know much about the motor and more specifically the cam. I have tried various settings both advanced and retarded. The best results I have had is at 10 degrees advance and idling at 720 rpm. It runs find on the low end, but if I get on it, it gets real choppy and I have some detonation. I have put new spark plugs in it and the wires check out. Can any of you Mopar wizards help this young pup out?

[Ghoste]

Are you just timing it by the damper?

[katieladan]

Yes sir. I am not how else to do it?

[Cooter]

First off, what octane fuel are you running?
What kind of 440 is in it? (High performance. Camshaft, high compression pistons, etc)


If stock, try turning distributor until pinging goes away at WOT. back it down in 1degree increments..

[katieladan]

I am running 93 octane. But I do not know anything about the internals of the motor. So its hard to say. is, I don't get a lot of panting when its parked. When I get on the road is when the panting starts. When I am timing the motor, I have it in park, but someone told me to time it while it is in drive and at an idle. Sorry for the dumb questions, but I am trying to learn from the ground up.

[RallyeMike]

Mark the dampner at 35 degrees with felt pen (measure off more using the located marks). Rev to 2500-3000 in Neutral with vacuum advance hooked up an match dampner timing mark 35 to zero on indicator. Adjust from there, to 36-39 depending on how it runs. That will get you started.

If that's not ballpark, you may have some other issues going on.

[Ghoste]

And I apologize for being unclear, what I should have said was are you timing it by the factory markings on the damper.

[katieladan]

Awesome. Now, I have electronic ignition, so does this work if I don't have a vacuum secondary?  Let me make sure I understand the steps:
1) Mark 35 degrees on my dampener with a marker
2) Set the Dial on my timing gun to 35 degrees
3) Put car in neutral
3) Rev the car to 2500-3500 and mark the timing
4) The timing mark on the damper should line up with the felt mark that I made at 35 degrees.
5) Adjust to between 36-39 degrees dependent upon how she runs

Sorry to be so basic, but I am a bit new to this and just want to make sure I understand. Thanks so much for the help Ghoste!

[katieladan]

Sorry, also a huge thanks to Ralley Mike.

[Ghoste]

Not vacuum secondary but vacuum advance.  And it will work without it.
Is it a newer Mopar Performance electronic distributor?

[katieladan]

Yes, it is relatively newer, but I am not sure what the brand is.

[RallyeMike]

To clarify, you are trying to shoot for about 35 TOTAL advance including all advance. That's why you need to rev when checking the timing.

That is a starting point. If you have a gun with adjustable advance, you are ahead of the game. Set it 35 and time to the zero mark on dampner. No marks on dampner needed with an adjustable gun!

Test drive. If everything seems ok, adjust more to get closer to 36-39. Back off from that if pinging. There are a lot of factors, but this is a start.

Good luck.

[BROCK]

It's really a combination of idle air mixture & distributor timing.  While I
realize that all the above help takes into account the distributor advance
settings & tuning for driving in both midrange & WOT situations, I believe
it is more important to get the idle & off idle settings dialed in first.  Once
these are established any midrange & WOT issues can be attributed to the
timing advance curve in the distributor & the carb setup. 
All I ever wanted back in the day when I was paying for my own college &
had only a few tools was an immediate throttle response & no dead spots 
during acceleration.  No one was going touch my distributor or carb - since
I had no money to pay them.  With money, a good dyno guy & a real tuner
with spare parts for your setup can really dial it all in for you.  I do not want
to act like I believe any of this isn't the best plan.  Far from it.  It's just that
the ability to understand how your specific combination acts & reacts to the
various adjustments that are within your control will help you to first get all
you can out of the car & second be able to provide valuable input when you
put it into someone else's hands for that next step up! 

Let's get started:
Leave it in Park & do not disconnect anything.  Loosen the distributor hold
down just enough to allow it to turn for hand adjustment. 
Start the car. 
Note how easily (or not) it started.
Note how well (or not) it idles. 
Turn the distributor a few degrees 1 way or the other.  Be prepared to revise
your direction if the engine begins to die.  Once the rotation of the distributor
produces the best & highest idle sound, turn off the engine. 
If your attempts to restart the engine are worse than your initial try, back off
a little from the direction you went & try it again.  Keep up this trial & error
until you are satisfied.

Next is the Idle Speed adjustment, which is nothing more than the backstop
for the carburetor accelerator.  You want the lowest possible idle RPM that
still provides a steady idle. 

Once the 2 above adjustments are in the best harmony you can muster, it's
time to really experiment.  Raise the idle speed just a little to prevent dying
during this next step:  Idle Air adjustment.  Count the turns it takes to move
the left & right screws in until they just seat or begin to bottom out (no hard
turning here).  Never mind if the engine dies.  Back both screws out 1 & 1/2
turns.  If it did die, try to start it.  Put them back to where they were if you
just cannot get the engine to start. 

While under the hood, the last thing you need to know is how to dump the
throttle with your hand.  Once it is idling low & steady (& cranks quick & easy)
you need to know that throttle response is at it's best.  Any time you feel the
settings are good, dump the throttle & notice if it accelerates like a champ, or
has a dead spot or any other less than desirable result.  Keep narrowing your
adjustments down to the best results.

Once satisfied, pull the car onto the street, drop it in 1st & hammer it.  If the
results are unsatisfactory, repeat all the above until the results are actually
rewarding!

There you have it:  The poor southern boy putting hisself through college with
a used Charger R/T for motorvation way of tuning a 440.

[katieladan]

Thanks for the detailed steps. I will give it a shot after church tomorrow.

[69white hat]

I had this same problem with my 440. It ran really bad, smelled of gas and my mechanic couldn't find a good timing point to get it to run very well at all, and it was pinging like crazy. I also did'nt have any idea what was in the engine for cam pistons or anything else. Finally he tore the front of the enginge off and the cam was out about 1/4 turn. lined it up with the marks he had put on and now it runs pretty well. It still pings when I get on it but it at least it has descent power and doesnt stink of unburned gas at all.

[katieladan]

That's a good point you bring up. Mine smells like gas ALL the time. I might have  to break down and tear the front of my motor off if I can't get it right...

[myk]

That's a good point you bring up. Mine smells like gas ALL the time. I might have  to break down and tear the front of my motor off if I can't get it right...

Agreed.  As far as I'm concerned my engine is a mystery machine; I have no idea about its internals so rather than try to tune the unknown I'm just going to tear it down and build it back up...

[69wannabe]

Post a pic of the distributor so we can see what it looks like. If its a newer mopar distributor it has an adjustable internal advance. I had a similar problem and couldn't pull my timing above 10 degrees and it was advancing way up to 37 degrees at 3000 rpm's. the newer mopar dizzy's were made by mallory and mallory makes a advance curve kit to set your advance where you want it. With the help of Ron (firefighter) I gutted my distributor and didn't change the springs since the one's in it were considered the best for a street driven engine so I limited my advance from 26 degrees to 20 degrees and set my timing up to 16 degrees at idle. It ran much better but still pinging. The kit has these little advance sticks with 14,16,18,20,22,24.26,and 28 degrees so you can set your internal advance where you want it to advance to. With 20 and 16 I had 36 total but it was still pinging so I pulled it back apart and set it to 18 internal and 16 at idle and it works great there. Gives me a total of 34/35 degrees. I think is on about 16 1/2 degrees actually but no pinging. The kit is made by mallory and takes all the guess work out of tuning your distributor and I bought my kit at summit racing. Good luck and check your spark plugs too, you may want to run a cooler heat range spark plug to help with your pinging problems but you need to see whats in it first.

[69white hat]

I should also mention then that the demon 750 carb was completely over fuelling the engine too. Instead of fooking around with that I dropped a edelbrock 650 with electric choke on it. That combined with retarded timing and the cam in the correct place and the car is probably putting out around 400hp. Definitely not reaching max potential but I probably won't blow it up. Like Myk said, I'll drive it then rebuild it to where I want it.

[Bob T]

Also, check out whether the harmonic balancer rubber has deteriorated, if it has and the balancer has shifted, then your new timing marks wont be accurate. Fairly common, mine was shot and I just couldn't get it running strong until I replaced the h.b. and everything else got better.

[katieladan]

Ok, here are the pics of the distributor. I have a pic of the coil which is a Mopar Performance part # 6876732 and the inside of the rotor which shows IBK 1016. Not sure what that means, but maybe this will help.

[katieladan]

Here is my coil

[katieladan]

Distributor again

[69wannabe]

Also, check out whether the harmonic balancer rubber has deteriorated, if it has and the balancer has shifted, then your new timing marks wont be accurate. Fairly common, mine was shot and I just couldn't get it running strong until I replaced the h.b. and everything else got better.

Haven't thought of this but it does happen like said above!! Had a small block do this exact same thing and almost ran me crazy!!

[69wannabe]

That doesn't look like the mopar performance distributor and rotor thats in my big block. It does look like it has the mopar pick up coil down under the rotor button but that distributor body does not look familiar to me. Maybe someone here has seen one of those and know what brand it is.