Ive heard people talk about advancing there pump timing a little bit. What does this do? Any more HP? Or just more rattle?

 

Mainly just more rattle, and loss power and more fuel used. The only time you should advance the timing is if you know it is already too retarded.

Mine was too advanced and I didm't even know it untill I retarted it and noticed how much cleaner the exhaust was during hard driving.

 

How does one know if it is to advanced?

 

In my case, the symptoms were smoke at the middle and upper end of the throttle range, and it was noisier than was normal (apparently).

If you decide to make make any changes to the timing, go in small increments and carefully document your changes.

If the timing is too advanced the smoke under load also tends to have a slight blue tint to it.

 

Would it be ok for me to retard the timing a bit to see how it runs then? Mine does get blue smoke under load.

 

Should be OK if you do small increments and make sure you know where the OEM mark is right now so you can still go back to the original setting. Go in 1/16" incriments at the most and retest to see the result. And don't run the truck without IP bolts tightened, make the adjustment, retorque the bolts and then restart the engine.