Had a couple of coworkers stop by and look at the beast running in the garage, they were ready to buy some engines when they left! Got to thinking that the ignition noise (diesel knock) of my engine always seemed a little loud, so I got out some tools to play with the spill timing. When I had my engine apart I did make timing marks for TDC, but I never got around to making any other marks. So being lazy and not having timing marks I started to retard the spill timing until the ignition noise quited down, I continued until there was a noticeable power loss, then started advancing until the knock came back, then retarded the timing again until it quited down again. I know this is a bonehead, nonscientific way of setting spill timing, however with my engine bump clearance being set close to 8/1 specs and having the changeover valve always screwed in during running, I really did not have good data to go from. So today I got her warmed up and turned on two of my 1500 watt space heaters, the engine carried the load with ease so I turned on another 1500 watt heater, and the engine carried the load well with clear exhaust and only dropped 1 Hz. Temperature in the garage was 101 F at approximately 1500 Ft. density altitude. Looks like the timing must be close as I got similar load results with the original timing setting on an approximately 60 F day, plus she shure is alot quieter!!! Just wish CMD was still importing this engine, I would buy two more today!
