How do you set the timing on a 1981 Cougar XR7 the car is at 4700 feet?

Answer 1

without a timing light or vacuum gauge the easy way is to loosen the hold down clamp on the distributor, start the car, slowly turn the distributor counterclockwise until the engine sounds like it is about to die, then turn the distributor back until the idle returns to a smooth even idle. As a good measure you can manually give it gas at the carb to check for backfire, if no backfire shut the car off, if the car does not chug or diesel when shut off timing should be real close. I use to set mine to idle at about 900 to 950 rpm when I lived at 5000 ft.

try using a vacuum gauge and set the timing at 15 to 18