Don't stray away from what Larry said above since that is pretty much the way to set the total timing and such. If you read anything other than Larry's timing thread you did it wrong.
I thought locked out timing is best for big cam profiles. Mine seems to luv as much as I can give it at idle, plus idles cleaner and makes the GF happy.
I'm using my vacuum advance to bring in 13 degrees of additional advance at idle. Its made my car idle way cleaner and works extremely well with my tight torque converter. One of my biggest issues with getting my idle right this whole time was that when I dropped the car in gear the torque converter would work my motor too hard requiring my idle to be set super rich so it wouldn't stall. I have only tested this in my garage. Haven't been able to test drive yet. Here's some articles that go over this specifically. I wish I had tried this with my quickfuel it may have cleaned up my off idle stumbles. https://www.streetmusclemag.com/tech-stories/tuning-in-a-vacuum/ https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/1607-tune-your-vacuum-advance-for-better-drivability
"There is no excuse for not making use of vacuum advance for a street-driven performance engine." Only excuse I can think of is when huge overlap cams don't produce enough vacuum in the first place. Guess that's why I didn't buy a vacuum MSD distributor. Reid, You're on the right track. I'm going to limit my centrifugal advance to 9 or 10 so I can get my initial up there. Locked timing will be the next straw.....
Right on. I think one of the articles talks about the big cam problem. But it has worked perfect with my street cam. My idle vacuum dropped down around 10 when in gear and I think one of these articles kind of mentions that as the threshold where the benefits will be noticeable with manifold vacuum hooked up. I read a few so not sure. I also watched this video...I'm really starting to like the guy from " badass cars. " he goes over how limit advance in both types of distributors. Video is toward bottom of page. https://www.badasscars.com/index.cf...ct_id=447/category_id=13/mode=prod/prd447.htm
How soon the centrifugal advance is "all in" should vary, in part based on vehicle weight and gearing. The lighter the vehicle, and the deeper (higher numerical) the gearing, the faster the advance can be "all in". The heavier the vehicle, and the lower-numerical gearing, the later the advance can be "all in". Typical full-body street car with ordinary gearing would probably want the centrifugal advance "all in" at 3000--3200 rpm. 2500--2700 is probably too early.
Set up what works good for YOUR car/combo I've done it too, read different articles and get conflicting opinions or procedures