I may be too advanced. I also may be retarded, Distributer problems Options

[F4i]

Hello. Got the beast running for the first time. Many new, and many old parts so trouble shooting is tough. I set my advance to 27 deg. with the vac hoses off and 3500 rpm. It will barely run when I return to idle with the hoses re-connected. It will idle but very high if I turn the dizzy ccw. It has both advance and retard hoses. They do seem to work with the dizzy off the car. The car idle gets worse with the large hose connected. the smaller hose has little effect. Car is a 74 2.0 with a pertronix. Any help greatly appriciated. Thx.

[mike_the_man]

I'll take a guess here. Is your mechanical advance working? When you have the timing light hooked up and you rev the car up, can you see the timing mark move? The car should work ok without the vaccuum advance hooked up. My car is a 74 and it never had the vaccuum advance, just the retard. It almost sounds to me like your mechanical advance is stuck in an advanced position. Of course this is all a guess. Too bad I didn't read this earlier, I was just in Calgary on Sunday night/Monday morning, I would have stopped by and gave you a hand.