oaibob

I bought a 1972 Olds that is basically stock. It does have an HEI distributor in it now and a new Holley. I set the timing to 12 at 1100 rpm and in drive to 600 rpm. It is hard to crank over although it has a new battery and starter. Any ideas on maybe changing the timing, etc.. It does run fine and idle ok as is

442Harv

Sounds like to much timing. Being you have a HEI, may not be able to use the factory specs. I would start the engine, put a vac gage on it, and read. Then lower the timing down, a little watching the vac gage. Go about two degrees, and try starting, and see what the vac is. I would advance the timing, to get as much vac as possible, but still start good. Then check the timing amount.Make sure your vac advance is working also.

oldcutlass

Since your car did not come with an HEI new, the stock timing spec's are N/A. Bump your timing up to 16*BTDC, make sure your carb and choke are set correctly.

droldsmorland

If the engine is original, never been apart check for excessive timing chain play first.
Too much slop will make the timing walk around and hard to set.
Settings will vary for each engine, fuel octane, and ambient conditions.
Is this a new HEI or one pulled from a mid 70s Olds?
Does the hard start happen cold or hot?
Have you cleaned both ends of battery cables? Have you ohm'ed out the battery cables?

Set A/F mixture (with a vac gauge) and base timing at curb idle 600-750rpm, not 1100.

12-14-16* base timing with distributor vac advance canister disconnected and its vac source plugged.
Now hook up the vacuum canister, it should bring in another ~10* at curb idle.
The centrifugal advance should bring in the rest of the total, all-in about 26-2800rpms.
Total = ~36-40* A setback timing light is recommended.

Unless you have patience and an assortment of springs weights and stops...the best way to dial in the distributor is to have it tuned by a vendor with this capability. Takes the guesswork out of the opening rate of the weights. Olds likes a steady opening rate to the total.

AJFink

How do you hook up a tach to a HEI distributor?

don71

At the cap you'll find a 1/4'' tab next to the 12v+ tab. The caps are often marked.
In the photo the tach tab is the bottom one.

AJFink

Yes I know but when I hook up my tach I get nothing. Do you hook the red pos. to this terminal and the black ground to ground? I have a old tach that has dwell also.......that ought to tell ya how old it is.

Vintage Chief

ABOVE ^^^ Tach sense wire to TACH terminal on HEI distributor cap.

oldcutlass

Yes red to the tach terminal and black to ground. You tach may not work on the HEI as there are multiple sparks at low rpms.

The photo of the cap above, the bottom terminal is Batt (red wire) and the top is Tach (yellow wire).

Vintage Chief

When hooking up an old-school type tachometer (Sun perhaps) to an HEI distributor I have "heard" (I cannot validate this) there is some type of Sense module you can get which facilitates the ability to use an old-school tach. Again, this is conjecture on my part, just sharing what others told me.

Also, from "others", I heard if not careful hooking up old-school tachometers they have been known to fry an HEI distributor. Only mentioning these things I "heard" since it might make some sense to get a tachometer which is known to work with your HEI. I don't know if some of this is B.S. or fact. JS

Fun71

I'm not sure what is considered an "old-school type tachometer" but I have a Sun Super Tach II from the 1980s (does this qualify?) connected to the HEI distributor in my car. Was in my '70 Supreme before installing it in the '71 convertible, and it simply has a wire connected to the TACH terminal with no magical electronic converter gizmo. It has worked flawlessly for the past 36 years with no problems with either the tach or the HEI, so I suspect the information you heard was not 100% accurate.

Vintage Chief

You know, those old-school types that came with that big gnarly transmitter you had to hook up with it. Those things are old-school.

AJFink

Thanks guys I don't have a Sun and I'll just have to go off of the cars tach for now until I get a better Tach. Did not want to high jack this thread.

Now back to the original programing.......

The way I set mine was and have always been taught is, Timing and idle should be set to what your engine runs best, this also means you may have to adjust the idle mixture. I use a vacuum gauge as mentioned above and get it set to where I have good throttle response and smooth idle. Then shut it off and start it up again. I am looking for nothing more than a bump and start when I turn the key. Take it out and drive it and listen for ping or knock. Adjust as needed and this is usually moving the distributor slightly advanced or retard to get it right.

Vintage Chief

Old-school, like these things:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Sun...-/273707653085
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nos-Sun-Blu....c100005.m1851

I had one of these which I installed in my 1967 Oldsmobile 442 back in 1969. I actually bought two of them, and sold one to a cousin for his 396 SS. My '67 was a plain jane (1st car I owned).
I'll have to say though, I've never seen an in-dash, or column-mount type tachometer with a dwell (as the OP states in Post #7).

Vintage Chief

Ah....so you're just hooking up a tachometer to check your RPM. You're just using hand-held device is that correct? I thought you were trying to hook-up a tach. Doh! Maybe I lost something - perhaps my mind!

AJFink

[QUOTE=Vintage Chief;1155502]Ah....so you're just hooking up a tachometer to check your RPM. You're just using hand-held device is that correct?

Yes a hand held.
My Dad taught me this method when I started driving in the 70s and it still stands the test of time.

Vintage Chief

My bad. I thought you were installing a tach on your car and didn't already have a tach on your car. You're validating the RPM on the tach on your car against a hand-held tach (which also has a dwell angle range meter). Now it makes sense.

Since I use OE contact points/distributor in my 1971 CS I haven't hooked up my tach/dwell hand-held to an HEI; and, I bought a newer model (CEN-TECH 95670) hand-held for measuring my dwell/tach. So, the way mine gets hooked up might be entirely different than how yours gets hooked up. But, I always set my vehicle (with OE contact points/distributor) in sequence Dwell>Timing>Carb. Sorry I read your thread wrong.