440 pinging when i put my foot in it. MSD ignition.

[69white hat]

Ok. Had my car for a while. I am NOT a mechanical genius. I know jsut enough to get myself in serious trouble. Most times I'll need someone to bail me out when working on stuff I have no business working on. I can do brakes. I can change an alternator or power steering pump. Shocks. But that's about it.

So whenever a post comes up about pinging I check it out hoping to learn something. And I have from reading the latest few that are up. I didn't know what mechanical advance was or how to get it or get rid of it. Now I do. However I have an MSD disributor with an MSD coil and an MSD electronic box. I'm afraid I don't know what the part numbers are or anything like that. I well figure these things out when I get home from work and google them.

My distributor does not have springs in it or a vacuum advance. So I assume it must be one of the ones with a bushing in it that sets the advance. I found out that black is 18*.

I would like to know how to find the bushing, and what other colors there are and what degrees of advance they give. If someone has pics o this I would really appreciate it. When I get home I'll take a look at it and try and figure it out. I have friends who know how to time cars.

For your info, I have a 650 edelbrock with a weiund ( however you spell it ) intake and edelbrock rpm heads. I have zero idea of the internals, this is the way I bought it. It really does run great and Idle great. It jsut pings some when you root on it. It also makes descent power. Ain't no slouch. Oh! cranking cylinder pressure is 160 psi.

[tan top]

 silly question , have you put a timing light on the motor to see how many degrees & at what rpm it stops advancing

[myk]

Yes. The first thing you should do is see where the timing is at now.  It may be time for you to start tinkering with the car's tune...

[69white hat]

I'm at work right now, I work away, 3 weeks at a time. I will check that as soon as I get home. I DO know that we set the timing as low as possible so it would idle well and reduce the pinging as much as possible. Unfortunatley this is just what was described to me, I didn't even know what advance timing was until a little while ago. I really can't say. I'll find out thursda when I get home.

[myk]

Something to look forward to; when you say the timing is "low" I'm assuming you mean that the timing is retarded?  As in before-top-dead-center?  My car refuses to operate with anything higher than 15* BTDC as initial base timing...