Ongoing Detonation Issue Help!!!!!

[Ishiftem]

I don’t have access to the actual box right now to plug the computer into. I’m ice fishing. Most people go on vacation where it’s warm. I go north to drive 3 miles on a frozen lake. I also race an obsolete engine with a 4 speed in a 3850 pound car. I refuse to get aluminum heads or shave weight off the car. Those two things probably say a lot about me!

[ClassAct]

I don’t have access to the actual box right now to plug the computer into. I’m ice fishing. Most people go on vacation where it’s warm. I go north to drive 3 miles on a frozen lake. I also race an obsolete engine with a 4 speed in a 3850 pound car. I refuse to get aluminum heads or shave weight off the car. Those two things probably say a lot about me!

4 speeds are not obsolete. I run iron heads. Maybe we are normal and everyone else is jacked up lol.

[Ishiftem]

I believe you may be on to something!

[Tuner]

Have you tinkered with this yet? Have you studied the software and played with the Run Retard Curve graph?

My next door neighbor in 1962 bought a 409-409 in the fall of '61. Black with red interior. He went from a '49 Chevy 216 to that. With those tiny bias tires it came with it was like driving on ice.

[Tom Walker]

It would be interesting to see if "softening" the top of that piston helped, it wouldn't cut the compression much as long as you were not too enthusiastic.

[Tuner]

I think it would be far more interesting to learn the effect of managing spark advance for best torque/power over the entire RPM/load range.

This is so easily done with the MSD 6530 I think it is peculiar more people don't use them.

Because there are so few distributor machines and people who know how to use them, systems like this which will manage a timing curve should be a lot more common if people understood the benefit.

This situation of the OP's with such high compression and high percentage of squish area is an extreme example, so I hope the benefit becomes clear if this follows to what I see is the potentially logical conclusion.

It isn't necessary but I would also use the MAP sensor
1-Bar, for normally aspirated engines, PN 23111
2-Bar, for 2-30 psia, PN 23121
3-Bar, for 2-45 psia, PN 23131

[Tuner]

I don’t have access to the actual box right now to plug the computer into. I’m ice fishing. Most people go on vacation where it’s warm. I go north to drive 3 miles on a frozen lake. I also race an obsolete engine with a 4 speed in a 3850 pound car. I refuse to get aluminum heads or shave weight off the car. Those two things probably say a lot about me!

4 speeds are not obsolete. I run iron heads. Maybe we are normal and everyone else is jacked up lol.

A couple of shifty characters in this thread. Need to keep an eye on them.

[In-Tech]

I think it would be far more interesting to learn the effect of managing spark advance for best torque/power over the entire RPM/load range.

This is so easily done with the MSD 6530 I think it is peculiar more people don't use them.

Because there are so few distributor machines and people who know how to use them, systems like this which will manage a timing curve should be a lot more common if people understood the benefit.

This situation of the OP's with such high compression and high percentage of squish area is an extreme example, so I hope the benefit becomes clear if this follows to what I see is the potentially logical conclusion.

It isn't necessary but I would also use the MAP sensor
1-Bar, for normally aspirated engines, PN 23111
2-Bar, for 2-30 psia, PN 23121
3-Bar, for 2-45 psia, PN 23131

You know you're just confusing people throwing the psia in there

[Old School]

Sorry, I cannot help you with the detonation issue. I have a question. The first car I had was a 63 Bel Air 4 door 230 six with 3 on the column. I drove that car for years.

Does your race car have the 2 piece drive shaft with the carrier bearing? I could never understand how those could survive a lot of power. I never had one with a lot of power but the driveshaft seems to be a weak link in stock form.

Sorry to get off track, Thanks.

[Ishiftem]

Sorry, I cannot help you with the detonation issue. I have a question. The first car I had was a 63 Bel Air 4 door 230 six with 3 on the column. I drove that car for years.

Does your race car have the 2 piece drive shaft with the carrier bearing? I could never understand how those could survive a lot of power. I never had one with a lot of power but the driveshaft seems to be a weak link in stock form.

Sorry to get off track, Thanks.

I use a one piece. People do make an upgraded two piece with billet bearing support. They use a telescoping rear section with 1350 joints. I knew someone running one in an all steel 61 running mid 10s.

[Ishiftem]

It would be interesting to see if "softening" the top of that piston helped, it wouldn't cut the compression much as long as you were not too enthusiastic.

I'm not really sure how that would be accomplished or how it would help.

[Ishiftem]

I think it would be far more interesting to learn the effect of managing spark advance for best torque/power over the entire RPM/load range.

This is so easily done with the MSD 6530 I think it is peculiar more people don't use them.

Because there are so few distributor machines and people who know how to use them, systems like this which will manage a timing curve should be a lot more common if people understood the benefit.

This situation of the OP's with such high compression and high percentage of squish area is an extreme example, so I hope the benefit becomes clear if this follows to what I see is the potentially logical conclusion.

It isn't necessary but I would also use the MAP sensor
1-Bar, for normally aspirated engines, PN 23111
2-Bar, for 2-30 psia, PN 23121
3-Bar, for 2-45 psia, PN 23131

So I have been looking through the software and it does a lot more than I thought it did when I bought it. Maybe people (like me) don't fully utilize all the features because the instructions are a little vague and really don't explain all that is possible. Now how does the MAP sensor fit into all of this? Also, how would having multiple retards work? Is it a case of using manifold pressure OR rpm for the retard? Or would the rpm based retard curve act as the baseline and the retard based on manifold pressure be in addition?

[Tuner]

All timing retards (Launch, Step, Boost and Run Curve) are all added together. The total amount of retard is the sum of all active retards. I think you should just use the Run Retard to start with, and until you get confident you have figured out the Run Curve it might be best not to bother with the MAP.

In the 6530 instructions, look at the run curve plot. The version I have shows 20 deg retard from 0 RPM to 1000 RPM and then a straight line slope to 0 retard at 3000 RPM. If you timing was set to 40 degrees with zero retard, that curve would be be from 20 to 40 degrees from 1000 to 3000.

You could start experimenting with something like zero retard at 30 degrees, retard 10 (to 20) from zero RPM to 1000, then a slope from 1000 to 8000 back to zero retard and 30 degrees.

The instruction video you were looking at was about using one of the other digital boxes that uses a time base retard curve instead of RPM base. This was the box that NHRA outlawed because this function is used as a traction control. Your 6530 box can do time based retard, but only in a simple manner compared to being able to plot a retard curve on a graph

[Ishiftem]

Cool beans. I have a data logger also. I’m thinking that once in 4th so there is no 60’, shift point, or other confounds, I can see how long it takes to accelerate from one rpm point to another. Say 5200 to 5800 and so on. Then use the results to dial in the retard curve. Sound right? I think I remember now reading about a similar yet crudely done version in a Jacobs ignition book where he used the tach and a stop watch.

[Tuner]

Does your data logger have an accelerometer, like the Innovate LMA-3 AuxBox? That makes it almost too easy. All you need is time and patience. I use the Innovate data stuff in temporary installations to highway and track tune. The accelerometer is good for driver coaching in road race and circle track too.

There are aps for smart phones that will data log G force vs. time and calculate 1/4 mi. speed and ET, some will draw a track map. A couple years ago we downloaded and used a free one in a pal's circle track dirt car. My friend's 20 year old son downloaded it in his phone and had it in the car in 15 minutes. It recorded lap times and video of the race. I don't remember the name of the program, seems like it was from New Zealand and targeted to roadracing. It prompted by asking were we were, used google earth to identify the track, user then zoomed in on the track and used a fingertip to draw the start-finish line for timing. Funny thing was he didn't get the finger across the whole width of the straightaway and a few laps when the driver ran high or low it didn't trip the timer so that lap was twice as long and the little moving ball on the playback map went out behind the grandstands through the parking lot.

A pal built a 392 Windsor with some chinese fastburn head that was allergic to timing. Three of us spent a night cruising with a timing light and the accelerometer and determined it required a curve with 20 deg at 2000 with a straight slope to 26 at 6000 and with that curve in a regular Ford distributor it ran well above its pay grade. It still wanted 40+ degrees for level road no load, but that is standard distributor machine vacuum advance stuff so no big deal. The vacuum advance was 0 deg @ 6", 10 deg @ 12", 20 deg 18".