Timing retard

Recently had a guy tell me about retarding the timing 3-4 degrees when the engine starts to bend at the big end of the track. Says it's old drag race trick. Says it helps with the power there. Is there anything to this?
We dyno'd the motor and tuned to make peak power but this has me wondering if it's worth putting in a switch activated retard. thoughts?

HorsinAround wrote:Recently had a guy tell me about retarding the timing 3-4 degrees when the engine starts to bend at the big end of the track. Says it's old drag race trick. Says it helps with the power there. Is there anything to this?
We dyno'd the motor and tuned to make peak power but this has me wondering if it's worth putting in a switch activated retard. thoughts?

Retarding the timing from where you set it is what it does ... what is not mentioned is that you set it farther advanced to begin with.
By retarding the timing in high gear it ALLOWS the timing to be more advanced for acceleration in the lower gears.

Timing retard is what it does but, it is not running retarded timing.

Like Randy from Roseville mentioned, you can advance the timing (mechanically) for a bit of response up front then "pull" a few degrees out after the launch. I like to "pull" a few degrees out when we shift into high gear, in an effort to allow the engine to spin a bit easier and to ward off any detonation. They are also multi-retard systems available. Back a few years ago when dual point distributors were popular, we would simply disconnect one set of the two points to retard the timing!

Dave.