63 287 intake and carb

Thanks guys

I know some aren't a fan of setting timing "by ear", but gasoline is so much different than what was available when these old cars were new that it's almost a necessity. So use 5 degrees BTDC as a starting point, but then fill up with the grade fuel you intend to run and go find a big hill at least 1/4 mile long. Not a mountain, just enough to cause the engine to work a little. Bump the timing "up" (idle speeds up a little) then hit the hill and listen for a spark knock. No knock -- go back down and bump up a little more. Heard a knock/rattle? Bump it back down a little. Repeat until you have advanced as much as you can without a knock/rattle. That's your ideal timing. Now if you do this on a cool day you might get a knock/rattle on a hot day and have to bump it down a little. You might want to get a light out and take note of where the timing is when done and record it for future use. Setting timing with a vac gauge might be close to the same results -- I've never used a vac gauge to set timing, just set by ear for best performance. With different gas formulations for different regions now you might need to bump the timing one way or another if traveling a long distance, go keep a wrench in the glove box. Of course you can just adjust your driving a little if just passing through.

Edited by FSJunkie - Mar/08/2018 at 12:49pm

If you can keep your foot out of it a 4V usually will increase economy a bit. Only runs on half the carb most of the time. That is with the modest original carb -- which is only about 450 cfm, and just putting around. Most use a 600 cfm carb as it's more readily available. Half of that issn't much smaller than the original 2V, though you can't directly compare cfm ratings between 4V and 2V. A measurement of the throttle butterfly diameters will get you close though.