It's not so much easy as stone simple. The truth is, if you want to know what your total advance is, there are only two ways to know: accurately marked damper, or a timing light with the dial-back feature. The Craftsman is an accurate light for little cash outlay, and another one in the "cheap but good" category, is the lights by Actron. I have a $230 Snap-On light, and it has been used against my cheap and cheesy Actron light, and against others. The Innova light is ok, but not as good as Craftsman or Actron. Sun-Pro was alright too, as I recall. Hit the flea market and look for a bargain on a used one, if new is a little steep for you. Another problem experienced by the more expensive lights, is inaccuracy caused by capacitive-discharge or multi-strike ignitions. This often fools the timing light into giving you a false timing signal, or no flash at all. For some reason, the cheap Actron light has no problem with this, and the lower-cost Craftsman units also didn't care what ignition you were using. I have yet to experience this problem with my Snap-On, but I have heard of it happening with other, high-end timing lights. I keep my Actron, and use the Snap-On until I don't trust its results. The thing you need to do, is determine where in the RPM you want full timing to come in, and rev the engine to that point. Hold it at that RPM, and check timing advance. If it's where it needs to be, you're done. If not, adjust the distributor until it is at the correct advance, and at the right RPM. After this step, bring the engine back to idle, and check your initial timing advance. This is where you want to put the distributor every time you pull it out, to duplicate the desired-for full advance numbers. Initial timing is always determined by the manufacturers like this, and when the initial advance is wrong in relation to the full advance, it gets corrected the same way we do with these fancy aftermarket systems. Access to a distributor machine will also give the answer to the question, "what initial timing do I need for this full advance number?" It will also allow you to re-curve your distributor, without running the engine during the process. It's a very cool tool, and now also an endangered species.
