L100 cam timing question

[1940operacoupearg]

Hello, I want to introduce myself, I am from Argentina and I have a 1940 Ford coupe with 59 AB engine.
I have placed an L100 cam and I will use gears type 8BA and mercury crank.
Do I need to advance the crank 4 degrees? or placing the stock points the cam will be synchronized?
I would appreciate someone to help me.

[Ol' Ron]

No, for a street engine run the cam straight up, lik the stock cam. Advancing the cam will improve low end torque,but you can open ou a can of worms here. The most important thing you can do when using this cam is raise the CR as much as you can, because this cam Kills a lot of it.

[Lawrie]

Ron, on my 33 with the 99a engine and 4 inch crank , I noticed a drop in fuel economy over a period, turned out to be from changing the heads from 75 cc chambers to 82 cc ones.
I will try and weld up the crack in the 75 cc ones(cast iron) and refit them.
But I also thought about getting a set of eddelbrock ones at 65cc, I was worried about the high comp ratio,
Am I worried about nothing.
Lawrie

[1940operacoupearg]

Ron, thanks for the information. I chose this cam based on your opinion about this.
Here in Argentina, cylinder heads with a 62 cc chamber were manufactured, and pistons have a dome.
It also has the relief and is ported in intake and exhaust. I estimate a CR of 8.7 approx.
Not sure which intake manifold to use. 2x2 or 3x2?
What do you think?
Thanks for your help.

[Ol' Ron]

when I started using the L-100 cam back in the early 90's.At first I was concerned by the Long duration of the cam (246* in, 235*ex) Would kill off too much low end torque, and reduce the MPG of the vehicle. The owner of the engine insisted I use it. The 276 engine went into a 5500 lb 42 Ford Ambulance. The sound was incredible and the fuel milage on it's first trip tip The York show was around 17 mpg. Ignition and carb was stock 59 48 ford.
Richard Kunc did a complete tune up project on the 276, L-100 engine in a 300 Lb 53 ford HT over a year and several thousand miles. All the results were published here on the barm. Best combination was the SBC dist and 500 cfm Edelbrock carb the results was 21 mpg an a 50 mile course 30% interstate 60% street. I don't think the Cam is good for small displacement , low compression engines in a heavy vehicle.

[1940operacoupearg]

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the Coupe is a light vehicle and the RC is high so I hope to take advantage of the cam's full potential
I will place a 1951 stock distributor. Is it a good option or does it not work well?

[JSeery]

Unless you are running the original carburetor, and just one of them, the loadamatic distributor will not work at all or poorly at best with a lot of work. Doesn't make much sense to me to not take advantage of a good distributor, such as a converted Chevy, Mallory, etc.

Bubba has some information on his site: http://www.bubbasignition.com/49-53.html

"The 1949-1953 Ford Loadamatic is a wonderful distributor when used (in good shape) on a stock single carb engine.
​
The distributor is a vacuum advance only ( no mechanical advance) and works very well with a balanced synced vacuum supply.

The addition of a high lift camshaft and multiple carbs make this much needed vacuum signal imposible to tune. Making the engine have little control on spark advance. ( a mechanical advance aftermarket unit is needed ).

See our Delco Conversion page above pg 1 &2.."

[Ronnieroadster]

Originally Posted by 1940operacoupearg

Hello, I want to introduce myself, I am from Argentina and I have a 1940 Ford coupe with 59 AB engine.
I have placed an L100 cam and I will use gears type 8BA and mercury crank.
Do I need to advance the crank 4 degrees? or placing the stock points the cam will be synchronized?
I would appreciate someone to help me.

Welcome to the Ford Barn
Since your running a reground cam with the L-100 profile you will find if you take the time to do the actual cam timing the cam will be way out of spec. The original L-100 timing card specified advanced 4 degrees that was not ignition timing that was the cam location in relationship to the crank shaft. Once a cam is reground the new profile is never in the exact location as the original lobe thats why all aftermarket profiles as well as new cams must be checked. You will find if you take the time to check the actual cam at .050 as per the timing card its going to off. This requires the cam bolting location to the cam gear will need to be corrected.
Ronnieroadster




P.S. Checking the cam timing on all of the huge amount of Flathead engines I have built and continue to build has proven to me they all need to be corrected.

[GOSFAST]

Originally Posted by 1940operacoupearg

Hello, I want to introduce myself, I am from Argentina and I have a 1940 Ford coupe with 59 AB engine.
I have placed an L100 cam and I will use gears type 8BA and mercury crank.
Do I need to advance the crank 4 degrees? or placing the stock points the cam will be synchronized?
I would appreciate someone to help me.

While your assembling your build you should ALWAYS degree the cam in beforehand, at least just to check it, we do it when we "mock-up" most of the other components!

If you don't actually spend the time degreeing it you'll never really know where it's at from the start! Just because you line up the "dots" on the crank/cam gears means nothing really!

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. Quite a while back we devised a method to allow us to move the Flathead cams quite easily using the same "pill" we use for the SBC's. They come in "0", "2", "4", "6" and "8". It's really simple for us now.

[Tim Ayers]

Originally Posted by Ronnieroadster

Welcome to the Ford Barn
Since your running a reground cam with the L-100 profile you will find if you take the time to do the actual cam timing the cam will be way out of spec. The original L-100 timing card specified advanced 4 degrees that was not ignition timing that was the cam location in relationship to the crank shaft. Once a cam is reground the new profile is never in the exact location as the original lobe thats why all aftermarket profiles as well as new cams must be checked. You will find if you take the time to check the actual cam at .050 as per the timing card its going to off. This requires the cam bolting location to the cam gear will need to be corrected.
Ronnieroadster




P.S. Checking the cam timing on all of the huge amount of Flathead engines I have built and continue to build has proven to me they all need to be corrected.

Having a motor built by Ronnie has been one huge learning experience. We used a Potvin 3/8ths cam that was ground by Moon.

Straight up, it was actually 119 degrees when it should have been 110. If we would have just put it in as ground, the cam would have been a total turd.

As Ron mentioned, he machined the gear to correct it. It is now dead nuts correct as per the timing card specs @ .050”