J engine ring end gap

VTEC wrote: Have you looked at the setting with a timing light? If so, was it erratic? 

Yes, and No.
With engine idled up to 3500+ the timing light shows steady illumination on the Dyna degree gauge visible through the hole in the blue timing adjustment plate.  Before doing this, I determined it was important that 2/3 and 1/4 cylinders are timed correctly, so I took the following steps to assure that for my own peace of mind.  You may not wish to go through all of this monkey business, and I couldn't blame anyone for not doing so.  
Being a fanatic tinkerer, I broke loose both pickups and replaced the tiny phillips-head screws with hex-head bolts, then readjusted them to fire at near identical degree settings.  They are not perfect, but very close.
Both pickups need to fire at the same degree setting.  It is a tedious process to get right, but worth the effort to assure correct balanced timing between sets of cylinders, and more importantly to gain valuable tinkering experience.   
To do this process, you gotta pull the spark plugs and use a 17mm wrench to manually rotate the engine clockwise direction only, around and around again, and around again...until you got it right! 

daveo wrote:

VTEC wrote: Have you looked at the setting with a timing light? If so, was it erratic? 

Yes, and No.
With engine idled up to 3500+ the timing light shows steady illumination on the Dyna degree gauge visible through the hole in the blue timing adjustment plate..  
Being a fanatic tinkerer, I broke loose both pickups and replaced the tiny phillips-head screws with hex-head bolts, then readjusted them to fire at near identical degree settings.  They are not perfect, but very close.
Both pickups need to fire at the same degree setting.  It is a tedious process to get right, but worth the effort to assure correct balanced timing between sets of cylinders, and more importantly to gain valuable tinkering experience.   
To do this process, you gotta pull the spark plugs and use a 17mm wrench to manually rotate the engine clockwise direction only, around and around again, and around again...until you got it right! 

See the illustration above. Is that what you're seeing at idle?

The top one...nice and steady (above 3500 rpms).
I edited in more information which may be helpful to get my drift better for fine tuning the timing between pairs of cylinders.

Good luck and have fun playing around with it!

Ok. So yours is the same. Jumps around so bad at idle you can't read it, but smooths out at 4k.

VTEC wrote: Ok. So yours is the same. Jumps around so bad at idle you can't read it, but smooths out at 4k.

If I remember correctly, the Dynatek rotor that came with my kit does not have idle/low-rpm timing marks on it.
And I correct what I mentioned about the pickup retaining screws, which are not tiny hex-head bolts, but phillips head with a slot of a slightly larger thread size to replace the originals that striped out.

That's true. But with my timing light I can adjust advance, line up at TDC, and read the lower advance at idle

But you did view at idle and see the mark bouncing around?

Here's the blowby. The clatter is normal from the Flatslide carbs.

Blowby  

VTEC wrote: Ok. So yours is the same. Jumps around so bad at idle you can't read it, but smooths out at 4k.

That is normal.
The higher the rpm's the more stable the timing mark becomes. 
The main thing is getting the full advance timing correct..

Been awhile since I checked the timing, but I recall that idle timing is automatically determined when the 3500+ rpm timing is set.  Like there is no low/idle timing adjustment available to set separately from that.

zed1015 wrote:

VTEC wrote: Ok. So yours is the same. Jumps around so bad at idle you can't read it, but smooths out at 4k.

That is normal.
The higher the rpm's the more stable the timing mark becomes. 
The main thing is getting the full advance timing correct..

Thanks Zed. Had a feeling it was normal. What do you think of the blowby video?

Sorry if I missed the point of your question, but you're welcome anyways.

daveo wrote: Sorry if I missed the point of your question, but you're welcome anyways.

Thanks daveo...