DeTomaso Mailing List: May 99, Message #146

Oh wise ones on the list:
please help me with a problem that has developed on my car.  The car decided not
to run after being in storage all winter.  Turned out to be a collapsed set of
points.  Changed to a petronix ignition (inductive pick up points replacement). 
Eliminated the ballast resistor.  Set the timing.  Now comes the terrible part. 
When I set the timing I made two mistakes.  First was I left the vacuum advance
and retard connected and second was the last time I set the timing I used a dial
back timing light.  This time I used a normal one.  SO the timing mark was
painted at zero not sixteen degrees.  Drove the car like that.  It was better
than the bad points, but not great.  Hard to start, slow to build revs,
occasional backfire through the carb, ect, plus lots of black smoke out the
exhaust.  I was thinking about it one day and realized what I had done and reset
the timing using a dial back timing light.  16 degrees initial with no vacuum
lines connected to the distributor and 38 degrees total @ 4k with the vacuum
lines attached.  Car starts much better, runs much better but I'm still getting
visible black smoke at idle.   It also loads the cylinders up so bad that I need
to rev the motor to clear it before I can go.  The car is a 72 with a stock
intake and carb.  The only change from the stock setup is the elimination of the
points.  
TIA
Landis
#2672

With to many cars in pieces!!!!