You should never narrow the brush on a large comm motor like the Reedy Quad.....
The best setup we have found with these motors is 767 with Purple/Red, with sometimes tweaking the purple to be inbetween a red and purple....
The hoods should be aligned across from each other, as like Korey said, it will retard the timing 1-2 degrees (heh, where did you learn that Korey???)
And while a Reedy quad will start at .350.....it will be around .345 or so before its round, they comm pretty coned from Japan....
And we use no such dye or markers to denote polarity on the motors....
Later EddieO