it seems to be that everyone recommends 34 degrees total advance for a 455. if i can go higher without getting any pinging would that be beneficial or am i going to loose performance? the advance spring kit says to keeping advancing the timing until there is pinging then back it down 2 degrees. o No:
Timing advance depends on combustion chamber design(efficiency). The better the chamber the lower the advance lead. with my stage 2 street eliminator heads the engine runs best with 34 degrees total. I know of stage 1 cars that run best with as much as 40-42 degrees total. It really depends on what the engine likes.
there is no ideal advance number set in stone, as the previous post suggests, playing with your timing curve and total advance is the only way to nail down the number for your motor combination. you can also play with octane, also. for instance, too much octane will slow down the burn and require more timing, and may actually decrease horsepower. ideally you would want to run the least amount of octane required for the quickest burn/most heat, with the least amount of total timing. good luck
