those floats need to be set with the motor running at idle dude.
The carb floats have nothing to do with the engine jumping from 0 degrees advance to 25-45 degrees at idle.
+1
I am curious as to what the holley manual says. How else can you check the floats?
During a rebuild you set them (ballpark only) when the bowls are off but I am guessing that isn't what happened in this case since he mentions clear sight plugs.
Unless I am missing something you still haven't verified that the float isn't stuck. We know that the bowl is low........that's because what was in it leaked onto the intake manifold and left all the yellow junk.
A few things come to mid regarding your timing problem:
1)Are you certain you are using the #1 cylinder plug wire?
2)Are you sure your timing gun is working properly?
3)What type of plug wires are you using? MSD specifically states that you need to use helically wound wires and not solid core or interference will occur. Not sure what type of interference, but covering the basics.
Not sure what else could be causing the timing to be reading so far off. Have you double checked all your wiring for the MSD box to ensure it's wired properly? Haven't seen a problem go this long unresolved on Stangnet in quite a while...
I would think after 4 months of frustrating and pointless troubleshooting, I would ash-can the whole MSD ignition system and borrow or buy a stock, non MSD known working unit and substitute it for testing purposes. Carbs have nothing to do with timing.
A few things come to mid regarding your timing problem:
1)Are you certain you are using the #1 cylinder plug wire?
2)Are you sure your timing gun is working properly?
Pointless? Um... k.
My MSD worked fine previously for ~6 years and I was very happy with it. Unless there's some fundamental reason the MSD is causing this problem, I don't see any reason to get rid of it.
I have called MSD, for what its worth. They were about as stumped as I was.
After changing everything in the Ignition system to include the magnetic pickup trigger wires and powering everything seperate from the car I was convienced that it wasn't the ignition components. I then took a 9/16" wrench, placed it between the electric water pump and timing chain cover and pryed back on it... low and behold the timing moved back to 38 degrees and as soon as I took pressure off the wrench it creeped back to 54 degrees! I'm still in shock! The motor does have a limit botton on the cam. However, the timing chain cover is flexing and allowing this to happen! I loaded the car back onto my trailer and brought it home where I have been working non stop to pull the motor back out for the millionth time!
I am sure we're using the #1 cylinder plug wire.
The timing light could be off I suppose. Guess we could buy another one and see if it works.