Jerry - I am one of the ones that knows not a lot about distributor curves. And at my age, I don't need to learn
If I needed a distributor recurved, I would find someone that DOES know.
However, to date, I have never felt the need for a recurve. Even on my 450 HP 390. I found a 390-GT 1967 (pre-smog) distributor, and used it in its stock form. I have found GENERALLY the engineers knew what they were doing, especially for street vehicles.
The only race car I ever built had a factory racing distributor available, which is exactly what I used. And not ashamed to admit the car was faster than the driver!
Interestingly, at least to me, the factory carburetion was two 500 CFM 2-barrel carbs on a 121 CID 4-banger. It ran pretty good.
Ron has corrected the 18 degrees of advance to 18 inches of mercury. My comments about the 18 degrees of advance (on the street) were figuring he would need to recurve to final advance, PLUS he would need a good starter and a large battery.
Jon.
