Advancing Timing....easy?

MX-3 Money · Post by **MX-3 Money** » June 4th, 2005, 12:21 am

Now I know that you need to use the jumper wire on Ten and Ground, I just wanna know how easy or hard is it to advance timing on a car? Is this a tough job and something that needs to be done by a pro?

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » June 4th, 2005, 12:27 am

Its as simple as loosening the 2 bolts that hold your distributor in place and turning the distributor, making sure you are turning it in the right direction of course which is clockwise. You do need to have TEN and GND jumpered as you know. The important part is not to advance your timing too much. If you do.. You could have detonation going on in your engine and that will blow your pistons to pieces in a short period of time.

Tunes67

MX-3 Money · Post by **MX-3 Money** » June 4th, 2005, 11:52 am

How much would you recommend for a ze running 94 octane? Or do you need more info then that?

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » June 4th, 2005, 12:31 pm

If you are advancing your timing beyond factory specs.. its gonna be a "feel" thing. And it could take an hour or more to really do it right. Here is the method I use to figure out how much to use.

First place the jumper between TEN and GND. Loosen the 2 bolts that hold down the distributor. You dont want the bolts too loose though, you want the distributor to remain tight enough that it wont move on its own, but can be turned by hand with a bit of effort. Use a scribe and mark the distributor housing and the head. This might be tricky to do, but it will give you a crude point of reference so that you can see how far you have turned the distributor. Now start the car (you should do this when the engine is already at normal operating temp). Turn the distributor slightly so that the marks dont line up. You want to turn the distributor clockwise to advance. Now tighten the two bolts down and remove the jumper wire from the diag box. Now take the car for a test drive.. find a nice long steep hill and take it at WOT. Best to take a friend with you when you do this to give you a bit of extra load. Dont run your heater or stereo while taking the hill.. listen very closely for any knocking and pinging from your engine. If you dont hear any knocking or pinging.. take the car back home and repeat the procedure, advance it another notch so to speak. Keep doing this till you hear knocking and pinging from the engine.. then take the car back home and turn the distributor back a notch, tighten down the bolts and call it good. This should give you a relatively safe amount of extra advance. Now.. if you do this procedure.. make sure you always run the same octane of gas that you set the advance with.. or you will get knocking and pinging. You might want to do a second scribe mark on the distributor and head to note where you finally end up, for future reference of course.

Now for the disclaimer part

While I did this with my engine (in fact I have done it for every car I have ever owned LOL ) I take no responsibility if you damage your engine while attempting this. Its pretty easy to do.. but its also pretty easy to damage your pistons and maybe even damage valves if you go to far with the advance.. so be patient, if you make 10 runs at the hill, so be it. Turning the distributor in small increments and testing between each increment will take time. Best of luck.

Tunes67

vozaday2000 · Post by **vozaday2000** » June 5th, 2005, 1:18 pm

not to jack this thread but does advancing the timing run the fuel mixture richer or leaner. or what does advancing the timing actually do.

MX-3 Money · Post by **MX-3 Money** » June 5th, 2005, 3:08 pm

Tunes you're always a wealth of information!!! And I damn nice guy when it comes to explaining things!!! Thanks man.

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » June 5th, 2005, 3:36 pm

not to jack this thread but does advancing the timing run the fuel mixture richer or leaner. or what does advancing the timing actually do.

Advancing your timing doesnt change your fuel mixture.. what it does is allow you to change the point in time where your spark plug ignites the fuel in the cylinder. By advancing the timing, you are igniting the fuel sooner rather than later. You dont want to go to much or you will start getting detonation, this puts huge amounts of pressure on the pistons, pins & crank. But if you do it right.. it will result in a bit more Horsepower and better gas mileage. This is something you should only do in tandem with running the highest octane gas available. The higher the octane rating, the more resistant to preignition the fuel is. This will help prevent detonation. Advancing your timing and running low octane fuel is NOT a good idea, the chances of damaging your engine go way up if you do so.

MX-3 Money - Always glad to help out. Have fun and happy zoomin

Tunes67

hgallegos915 · Post by **hgallegos915** » June 5th, 2005, 8:10 pm

thats strange..i turned my disty counter clockwise..it seems faster than with it clockwise(down) i dont get any pinging at all. I tought ecu compensated for timing changes...

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » June 5th, 2005, 10:29 pm

The ecu will compensate for timing changes.. unless you have TEN and GND jumpered when you make the change. And just to eliminate confusion on which way advances and which way retards.. You want to turn the distributor the opposit direction the rotor turns in order to be advancing your timing.. if I got it backwards in my posts above.. please forgive my oversight. Best of luck...

Tunes67

MX-3 Money · Post by **MX-3 Money** » June 6th, 2005, 2:38 pm

Ok now i'm confused, which way is it to advance? Clockwise or counter clockwise?

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » June 6th, 2005, 3:23 pm

Easy to tell for certain.. just take off your distributor cap.. Have a friend crank the engine for just a second so you can see which way the rotor turns.. put the cap back on and turn the whole distributor the opposite direction that the rotor turned this will advance the timing. I thought it was clockwise.. but.. I dont actually have a V6 so I cant just go outside and verify. So you will have to verify for yourself

No big deal

Tunes67

mdavis · Post by **mdavis** » June 10th, 2005, 6:13 am

How do you reset the ECU to default timing?

Gro Harlem · Post by **Gro Harlem** » June 10th, 2005, 9:30 am

since our timing is adjusted by the ECU its pretty hard to actually keep it advanced. I've tried myself to advance the timing and when i had to reset my ECU the timing was reset to default. I didn't bother since then since it is VERY hard to see the damn timing marks with the V6 under there

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » June 10th, 2005, 11:58 am

Gro Harlem wrote:since our timing is adjusted by the ECU its pretty hard to actually keep it advanced. I've tried myself to advance the timing and when i had to reset my ECU the timing was reset to default. I didn't bother since then since it is VERY hard to see the damn timing marks with the V6 under there

OK, now I'm really going to go out on a limb here and show my ignorance. If the ECU, apparently automatically compensates for the correct timing, what would be the purpose of having timing marks or even having to set the timing period. There must be a limit as to the ECU's ability to compensate. I just picked up a new timing light to do a verification on my timing and now I'm thinking it may all be for not. If the ECU always compensates, then installing a new disty would not require a timing set-up and would basically be a plug n play?????

hgallegos915 · Post by **hgallegos915** » June 10th, 2005, 12:18 pm

I had advanced timing for like a week..i removed the battery for a while restarted and boom..advanced timing gone :*( I moved disty all the way up ..down.. no change in speed...

just spits a bit when its all thje way up. bleh .
:*(