I seem to have a slight problem with my 66 Lincoln. We just had the engine out of the car, not for a rebuild, just a refresh. We added new gaskets cause ours were all but rotten, did some detailing and added a Petronics II Flame thrower set-up. This included the coil and the removal of the points. Also added new plugs and wires.

The car runs quite well, starting is sometimes an issue and is prone to stalling at red lights while in gear. Idle is set at about 900 RPM, kicks down to about 650-700 in gear.

My problem is the shop manual is a little vague on timing. I'll walk you through what I did and maybe someone can point out the error.

-Found TDC on #1 (front passenger cylinder)
-hand cranked engine to 10 on the damper
-installed distributor with rotor pointing to where #1 would be. Roughly 12 o'clock into the firewall, maybe a little like 12:30
-we have been playing with the distributor back an forth. Timing light hits on "0" with the vac advance off

She also has a newer Edlebrock 650 cfm carb. The choke seems to work as it should, wide open when the car is hot. There is two vac take off's on the front of the carb. It run's way better when the passenger side port is used. The car run quite rough when installed on the drivers side.

Is my time off by a little...or a lot? any other ideas?
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spetz01, did you read this?
http://www.ford-mel-engine.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=169

I remember reading that the correct OEM timing when using contact points in the distributor isn't correct when a Pertronix kit (or any other electronic ignition system) is installed.

reijerlincoln wrote:I remember reading that the correct OEM timing when using contact points in the distributor isn't correct when a Pertronix kit (or any other electronic ignition system) is installed.

Can you point us to the source of this cognition?

I remembered from a recent thread on thelincolnforum.net that most people need retard the timing somewhat after installing a Pertronix Ignitor. Todd writes: "Did you pull your vacuum advance line before you timed? With the pertronix you still time it as you would stock.. Number one should still fire 8 BTDC. The pertronix just moves the firing point some because the magnetic sleeve that you slide on isn't exactly the same as the stock."

So the above link has tuning info for the 430 engine, would that apply to the 462?

Would 2 degrees make that much of a difference? Mine is set at 10 right now and the link to the 430 cid says 3 or 4 I think.

sounds like the carb ports are set so that one is engine vacuum, the other is ported vacuum. in other words, the one that makes the engine seem to rum smoother is engine vacuum, the other has vacuum only when the throttle is opened. The engine vacuum is advancing the timimg, making the engine run smoother. I suggest using the ported vacuum, and try setting the timing at another 5* advance at a time and see if the engine idles better. As long as it starts good hot and does not "ping on hard acceleration, run it that way. the harmonic dampner could have slipped, timing chain stretched, to make the factory settings in accurate. Can't hurt to try. Henry