Great information there C9x, and wonderful reading. Very informative. Henry, I have noticed the same thing about most crate motors but have had better luck with full time vacuum also. Don't know why, read it somewhere once but don't remember why.

My question lies with the initial stabbing of the distributor, can you do the same thing somehow with an HEI? That is, make the light go off and on by moving the dizzy to determine you best spot to set initial timing? Just interested to know. I am going to copy and paste this into some of my own stuff to use for future reference. Great stuff.