I am looking around for one of the " ëngine anylizer" units with the dwell tach meters.

  

Hey Mark why don't you go to Autozone and get a SunPro tach? They look good and work well enough and not very expensive and are period correct .. lol.

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

Hi Pete! I tried your suggestion of putting it up on stands and running it.Put it in drive-starts to run rough.Leave my foot off the brake and go right into drive.It starts to run rough and takes a 3-4 seconds to get the tranny turning before it smooths out.At basically 500 RPM(idle in drive) the torque converter should not even be turning the transmission at all?In other words there should be little pressure against motor RPM in the converter?It seems to be engaged and turning transmission right off the bat.If I continue to raise speed with brake released it clears right up.Stop the rear wheels from turning with the brake and it immediatley runs rough.Am I possibly on the right track here?I do not have access to an accurate tach so I am going on experience as to RPM.Just wanted to mention that the front band was checked when I had the pan off last spring and adjustment was correct.Just rechecked rear band today and it is correctly adjusted.

  

Thanks Pete! I'll give that a try tommorow.Let you know what happens.

  

Mark

   At this point you do need a tachometer to tell you the real RPM of your engine. Guessing will not be good enough to trouble -shoot your problem. And YES I do mean to disconnect ALL vacuum advance, set the idle and put it into drive. Even better if you have a tach hooked up. My 57 312 with aircooled FOM idles at 850 rpm in neutral and 600 rpm + or - in drive. I do have a mild cam and about 16 inch of MANIFOLD vacuum in neutral.

  Another thought is to put the rear end into the air with axle stands and test in drive to see if the converter and or fwd clutch is dragging. Pete

Hi Steve! I haven't anaylized the advance curve.The only real problem is it just will NOT idle smoothly in drive.In drive with anything out of idle is fine.The vacuum advance is working fine.I have run this with ported and straight manifold vacuum.Set the timing several times with the light.Advancing to 12 BTDc or back to 6 BTDC.Set it with a vacuum gauge. Idles in neutral with steady 18.No flicker or indication of anything abnormal as far as missing spark plug  or open valves etc.No vacuum leaks.I have "choked" the motor which if it speeds up indicates a vaccum leak.Nothing changed.I have replaced the plugs.Nothing.I have twice removed the carb and reset float levels.Blown out all external passages.All air bleeds are clear.If I close off the air bleeds with fingers motor slows down.remove-motor picks up.Compression test shows good even vacuum.Replaced Accel ignition with points and then back to Accel kit because there was no improvement.Replaced the coil with high ouput unit AND reinstalled the resistor.If I put it in drive with parking brake on and raise the revs it keeps on running(think this means the torque convertor is OK)I am running out of items to check AND REALLY getting frustrated.In all other aspects it is fine.Almost forgot! I have rest the valve clearance twice.Once to .019 and then to .020.All it is now is noisier.Any thoughts at all?Thanks

  

Mark - I think Pete is suggesting you try and see what the transition is like when you are running full mechanical advance - no vacuum at all. I was wondering what sort of spark curve you ended up with....if you have the initial at 10° BTDC - then where does it end up at "full" and how fast is the engine turning when you get there? 

Some of the distributors were set to have 3°-5° initial (factory setup) and 30° in the distributor (2x15°) - but the springs were so stiff the engine had to have 6000 rev's to get all of the advance in. That's only 33°-35° total (not quite enough) and way too much engine speed. If you bump the initial up to 10°-12° - the top number turns out to be a bit too high, but the rev's are still so high you won't ordinarily get there anyway. A faster curve will get you some earlier torque - which you seem to need.

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

Hi Pete! I am unsure of what you are suggesting I test with advance plugged.Do you mean try it in drive with advance plugged so it only has initial advance?I have set the initial advance at 10BTDC with vacuum line off and plugged .

  

Mark

   To plug the advance take a golf T or similar and plug the rubber hose from the vacuum source so no signal gets to the distributor, and no advance of the timing.  If your connection is all metal then disconnect at the distributor and attach a plugged rubber hose. Pete

Hi Pete! I have tried it hooked  up to fulltime vacuum.The timing advances by about 15 which I is a little more than I was expecting.Idle speed increases of course  but its too high(too  fast in neutral) unless I cut the idle speed back on the carb and then I am back to square one with poor idle in drive.What do you mean by test with advance plugged ?