Long story short (I can fill in details as needed), a customer brought us a custom built 1987 Jeep with a 383 stroker built from an early 80’s GM 350 (I’d have to find it again, but that’s what google came up with when I searched the casting number).

Our customer didn’t build the engine himself but bought it as-is from the guy who did (out of state). He didn’t get any information on what components were used to build the engine, so I have no idea what it’s got for a cam. Part of my work on it was to re-seal the lower end, so I know it doesn’t have an adjustable cam gear, and it’s got Flo Tek heads, but other than that, I have no info on it and, in terms of what it should have for “good vs. bad” components and brand names, I really don’t know much about building a performance engine like this. I’ve never been into building engines - just fixing them.

Anyway, the person that built this engine installed a vacuum advance distributor that wasn’t hooked up - my boss said he’s seen and heard of people leaving the advance unhooked and not to worry about it. But, I also noticed that a couple of the plug wires seemed to be in the wrong positions on the cap and eventually found that the distributor timing was off as well.

I reset the mechanical timing of the distributor and made sure the wires were installed correctly, then set the timing at about 10* before TDC (that was based on some rushed internet searching as I was trying to get it done before the end of the day).

The engine runs and drives good, but I’m still curious what the recommendation is for the ignition timing when the distributor is basically fixed with the vacuum advance not being hooked up. My rushed research showed most with a 383 found that +/- 32* total timing worked well. This put the base timing at 10-12 degrees with an expected gain of about 20-25 degrees from the advance, but I didn’t find anything about where it should be set if it’s fixed.

Advice/suggestions/experiences? Thanks.

 

You should be good with 10 as the set point.

 

Thank you