Tuning Problems? I Don't Know..

Well if you are looking for experienced help and not someone that thinks they know what is wrong my suggestion is to start with the surging idle checklist.
It has everything you need to correctly diagnose and fix conditions that keep your car from running correctly.
Have you pulled codes? Any experienced person knows that's step 1 if possible.

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=698148

Best of luck to you.

fords2live said:

Not someone who thinks they know what they're talking about...

Click to expand...

At age 22 I thought that I knew everything... Now at 68 I know that there is a whole world of things that I am ill informed about...

No info about your car's model year, EFI or carb, no mods listed. Makes it hard to troubleshoot when we don't know what you have.

That's why it is a good idea to use the sig option under the user control panel (User CP) option. It allows you to post your car year & mods, which help greatly when troubleshooting things. No, it is not there for us to snoop and see any "Secrets" you have hidden away under the hood. Be a good stangnetter and update you sig for future reference & don't keep us guessing.


Did you remove the distributor when you removed the heads?

fords2live said:

Yes, I removed the distributor. The timing is where it should be tho.

Click to expand...

The odds are that you are 180 out of time or have the firing order wrong.

Putting the distributor back in and setting the timing.

Revised 28-Jul-2013 to include warning about putting spark plug leads in a different location to attempt a to fix a distributor incorrectly installed.

You can forget about anything beyond this point if you don't have access to a timing light. You will never get the timing set right without one.


Putting the distributor back in is fairly simple. Pull #1 sparkplug, put your finger in the sparkplug hole, crank the engine until you feel compression. Then line up the TDC mark on the balancer with the pointer on the engine block.

The distributor starts out with the #1 plug wire lined up at about 12:00 with you facing it. Align the rotor to about 11:00, since it will turn clockwise as it slides into place.

Align the distributor rotor up with the #1 position marked on the cap, slide the distributor down into the block, (you may have to wiggle the rotor slightly to get the gear to engage) and then note where the rotor is pointing.
If it still lines up with #1 position on the cap, install the clamp and bolt. If not, pull it out and turn 1 tooth forwards or backwards and try again. Put the #1 spark plug back in and tighten it down, put the clamp on the distributor, but don't tighten it too much, as you will have to move the distributor to set the timing. Note that there is no such thing as one tooth off on a 5.0 Mustang if you follow the spark plug wire order on the distributor cap. If it doesn't align perfectly with #1 position, you can turn the distributor until it does. The only problem is that if you are too far one way or the other, you can't turn the distributor enough to get the 10-14 degree optimum timing range. Don't move the wires from the positions shown on the cap on fuel injected engines!!!! The #1 position cast into the cap MUST have the spark plug wire for #1 cylinder in it. Do it differently and the timing for the fuel injectors will be off. The computer uses the PIP sensor to time injector operation by sensing the wide slot in the PIP sensor shutter wheel. If the injector timing of #1 and the firing of #1 do not occur at the right time, the injector timing for all other cylinders will be affected.

Setting the timing:
Paint the mark on the harmonic balancer with paint -choose 10 degrees BTC or 14 degrees BTC or something else if you have NO2 or other power adder. I try to paint TDC red, 10 degrees BTC white and 14 degrees BTC blue.

10 degrees BTC is towards the drivers side marks.

Note: setting the timing beyond the 10 degree mark will give you a little more low speed acceleration. BUT you will need to run 93 octane to avoid pinging and engine damage. Pinging is very hard to hear at full throttle, so it could be present and you would not hear it.

Simplified diagram of what it looks like. Not all the marks are shown for ease of viewing.

ATC ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '!' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' BTC
---------------- > Direction of Rotation as viewed standing in front of the engine.

The ' is 2 degrees.
The ! is TDC
The ' is 10 degrees BTC
Set the timing 5 marks BTC. Or if you prefer, 5 marks towards the driver's side to get 10 degrees.

To get 14 degrees, set it 7 marks BTC. Or if you prefer, 7 marks towards the driver's side to get 14 degrees.

The paint marks you make are your friends if you do it correctly. They are much easier to see that the marks machined into the harmonic balancer hub.

At this point hook up all the wires, get out the timing light. Connect timing light up to battery & #1 spark plug. Then start the engine.

Remove the SPOUT connector (do a search if you want a picture of the SPOUT connector) It is the 2 pin rectangular plug on the distributor wiring harness. Only the EFI Mustang engines have a SPOUT. If yours is not EFI, check for a SPOUT: if you don’t find one, skip any instructions regarding the SPOUT. If you have a SPOUT and it's a carb'd engine, then someone didn't know what they were doing.
Warning: there are only two places the SPOUT should be when you time the engine. The first place is in your pocket while you are setting the timing and the second is back in the harness when you finish. The little bugger is too easy to lose and too hard to find a replacement.

Start engine, loosen distributor hold down with a 1/2" universal socket. Shine the timing light on the marks and turn the distributor until the mark lines up with the edge of the timing pointer. Tighten down the distributor hold down bolt, Replace the SPOUT connector and you are done.

The HO firing order is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8. The firing order is determined by the cam.
Non HO firing order is 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8

Did you use a timing light to set the timing?

Considering you have offered very litte information all I can do is guess. If that is not good enough for you, then I won't send you a bill for the advice- fair enough?

Spark plug gap
balancer slipped
idle mixture needs adjustment- can you hook it up to an emissions tester to measure or even a vacuum gauge to adjust
did they mill the heads- could have a small intake gasket leak or misalingment allowing fuel to puddle

The 17 degrees initial timing is too high. Max total timing (distributor + initial) should be 38-40 degrees or less.

I would recommend that you start with 8-10 degrees initial timing.

fords2live said:

I'm running to big of a cam for that kind of timing. It won't idle that low. Too much fuel to burn, needs a better "head start" on it. Really it runs best locked out. So usually that's what i run with 20° start retard

Click to expand...

Cam lift and duration and ignition timing aren't really related.

Does your distributor have a mechanical or electronic advance built into it? Does it have a SPOUT? Are you running a MSD box?
Retard? are you sure that you don't mean advance?

fords2live said:

Quit treating me like i don't know what I'm talking about. MSD THEMSELVES will tell you bigger cams require more initial timing and i explained why. How could I have a spout without fuel injection.. I'm running MSD ECurve distributor. And why would I have a start advance? That doesn't make sense at all.

Click to expand...

The MSD distributor is information that you have not included up to this point.

Some cars are EFI to carb conversions and the guys doing the conversion do not understand that a different distributor is needed for a carb conversion. They leave the old EFI distributor in place and the SPOUT wiring with it.

Since this is starting to become less than a friendly exchange of information, I will bow out and let you stew in your own juices.