Holy Hell!!! Timing advance...

[Boags]

Hi all,

I tried to advance my timing today in the NA6, and i REALLY hope i got something wrong, becasue it looked like my timing was already advanced, to what i estimate is about 20deg...

I unplugged my fan, set up the timing light, and bridged the little black box with a paper clip, and pointed the light at the pulley. I must admit, i expected the TDC mark to be a bit larger than it was, and i hope what i was looking at was a mark of some description and not the TDC marker (it was a dot on the back edge of the pulley, not a line, and quite faint).

I have been running 91ron in my car since i bought it in Jan, and haven't noticed any pinking, so i'm a bit lost for ideas????

Hopefully someone at QR can give me a hand tomorrow, but please let me know if you can see i have forgotten a step somewhere.

Boags

[StanTheMan]

Holy hell.....20deg.
Id be prolly reduce this a little

I've heard of 18 deg.....not 20

Mine runs on 16

[Boags]

Is what i described the correct process though, and is the timing marker just a little dot? Not a great big f*&k off line????

AHHHH, i'm gunna blow my engine up

Boags

[StanTheMan]

its a small line. idleing at around 850rpm +/=50 if i recall correctly.
all light & radio shut off.

if you are unsure, there are isntructions on mita.net on how to do it.

[PT]

Now you know why that NA was so much quicker than the rest when you were test driving.

I was running 16deg BTDC with my old NA, the SE is still completely stock.

[JBT]

Sounds right but instructions and piccies here.

[Richee]

I have been running 91ron in my car since i bought it in Jan, and haven't noticed any pinking, so i'm a bit lost for ideas????

I am no expert but I dont think you could run at 20 deg on 91RON and not notice some/heaps of pinging.

Richee

[PT]

I have dríven the car... definately didn't notice any pinging but yes, for a 1600 NA it went very very well!

[jules]

At 14 degrees on 91, Malibu can ping a bit. 20, I would be afraid..
Are you sure you have the ECU bridged correctly? I would be surprised if you are not getting pinging with that sort of advancement.


Jules

[mio]

What is this marker that you are looking at? It might be wrong, feel the edge of your pulley, there should be a little groove. This is the marker, place a dot of whiteout on this marker, then do your timing again.

[Boags]

When i got in the car this morning the tank had about 5 litres left, so i fulled her up with BP Ultimate!!

Instantly more torque lower down, revs smoother and feels much nicer to drive. I had been blaming the lack of power on a new muffler i had installed after NATmeet, but that was about the time i stopped filling shazza with Premium, or at least 95ron.

I will recheck the timing none the less, making sure it is the right marker, and that all electrics are off, and set it to 16.

If this is infact set to 20deg+, what kind of damage would have been done by running 91 ron? I understand the concept of pinging, but how bad is it??? I hope i didn't wreck anything!

Boags

[sabretooth]

What sort of timing light are you using? Are you sure it's not just registering waste spark and therefore doubling the timing? Waste spark means that spark occurs twice as often per cylinder - could this be throwing your light? I'm thinking maybe you are running 10 degrees.

[Boags]

I hope so! To tell you the truth though, looked more than 20 I said 20 to be conservative and not freak anyone out, it looks more like 25-30

I think it is a cheap timing light, so hopefully that is it.

And definate improvement with higher octane, so maybe it is at 12 or 14?

Boags

[Sean]

How does teh timing light pick up signal?

Does it clip around a spark plug wire?

If so what wire are you clipping it over?

[JBT]

I understand the concept of pinging, but how bad is it???

It's a bit like bashing the sh1t out out of your pistons with an ice pick. You'd know by now.

I think you need a second opinion Boags.