Rough Lean Burn Transition have New Distributor

[benfrogg]

1)
Make sure it's good and warm; take a drive and then adjust it. Idle should be as low as it ever gets. Use a jumper wire at the service connector inside the car near the ECU. The check engine light will be on when this jumper is connected. It prevents the ECU from changing ignition timing. It lets the ECU know you are doing work to the car so stop advancing the timing.
You want to check at idle only. Timing should advance during throttling, however it may not if the vehicle isn't under load.
2)
Use number one. It is the longest one among them. (closest to the driver's side)
3)
The line on the harmonic balancer all by itself is the TDC (top dead center) mark. If the timing is set here the engine will run with very low power.
The three lines grouped together indicate (from memory here on the actual numbers, they aren't really important if you put it on one of those marks) 12degrees closest to the firewall, 14degrees in the middle, 16 degrees closest to the front bumper. The middle mark is where the factory setting would be. However, you can set it two degrees advanced or retarded. Retard would be towards the firewall (12degrees) and advanced would be towards the front bumper (16 degrees).
Start with the middle mark.
I have mine set at 17-18degrees advanced (past the last mark). I don't have any pinging. If you advance the timing beyond 16, make sure you check for ping. Ping is bad! (predetonation)

There are actually two marks on the plastic cover. One directly above the other. They are very difficult to see both if you aren't really looking hard for them. One is an outward v and one is an inward v. You line these two up with your eyes from above to the marks on the harmonic balancer. If you only see one of the marks you wont be very accurate. They are both there, use a straight edge to find them if you need to.

Hope that helps.
B

[GasSavers_TomO]

Ben has it down very well...and below should help as well.

THIS procedure should help with the details.

And THIS should help show which timing marks to look at with the light. The single mark (should be white) is the crank TDC mark, the group of three marks are the timing marks, the one in the middle should be colored red if the pulley isn't too rusty. the VX should be set to that mark shows at 16* BTDC.

Be sure to have all accessories turned off and as well as the blower fan when setting the timing.

[Wandering Albatross]

Got the timing set right on. It runs perfect now with no flat spots in the power band. I marked where the timing was initially set and it was off by about 15 degrees of distributor rotation. Not sure what happened there, but all is well now.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

[benfrogg]

Wandering Albatross-
Good deal! Mine was also set very far to the retarded side when I brought it home. It wasn't going into lean burn because of a bad 02 sensor so I couldn't have noticed the same issues as yours.
Glad to hear all is well,
B