What do you all mean when you say add timing?

[texasterror]

Ok I have searched and couldn't find anything explaining what timing meant when dealing with our cars. I hear comments like at more timing and increase the boost. I believe it has something to do with the spark. I have tried deductive reasoning but still no answer. Can someone please explain. Why is adding more timing bad? To most of you this is a stupid question so my apologies but I put the question in the title so one can ignore answering if they chose to (Hence not wasting their time).

 

[Hotrodbuick]

Advance or retard the timing. Adding (advance) taking away (retard) timing. When you advance timing you are making the spark plugs ignite the fuel earlier than it normally would have or taking away means they will fire later than they normally would. Unless you're good with tuning, I'd suggest not to mess with timing. Easy way to blow up a motor but how timing and boost go together I am not too sure yet as I'm new to the turbos. I'd imagine if you advance it you would want more boost, more air for when it ignites but I could be wrong. Maybe someone else will chime in on this.

 

[RIFF RAFF]

IF YOUR NOT RACING ... DONT MESS WITH THE UNKNOWN ! LEAVE IT FAT & ALIVE ..JMO.

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

IF YOUR NOT RACING ... DONT MESS WITH THE UNKNOWN ! LEAVE IT FAT & ALIVE ..JMO.

So thats what adding timing means.

 

[RIFF RAFF]

So thats what adding timing means.

yes .. i added
to the life of his engine .

 

[87boostedbuick]

I thought you couldn't play with timing on these cars becuase of the coil pack I thought the only way to do it was with a chip?

 

[williamsGN]

Correct, you need a chip such as Turbo Tweak's and a Scanmaster.

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

yes .. i added
to the life of his engine .

 

[RIFF RAFF]

I thought you couldn't play with timing on these cars becuase of the coil pack I thought the only way to do it was with a chip?

bingo ! TT chip ,tuning device , after market E.C.U... and the learning curve can be costly ..

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

Ok I have searched and couldn't find anything explaining what timing meant when dealing with our cars. I hear comments like at more timing and increase the boost. I believe it has something to do with the spark. I have tried deductive reasoning but still no answer. Can someone please explain. Why is adding more timing bad? To most of you this is a stupid question so my apologies but I put the question in the title so one can ignore answering if they chose to (Hence not wasting their time).

some body will eventually answer your question after they beat you up on not needing it. I honestly love this bunch of ball busting knuckle heads.
Anyway
I added timing to my car (very little at a time) ONLY in the 1-2 gears and every time the car went faster.

 

[texasterror]

Well I plan on racing the car. The motor is being built as we speak. I do have an TT Chip and bunch of other goodies. The houston buick club president is a good friend of mine and is good at this stuff but we are both workaholics so we dont see eachother much these days. I would of course get with him before i did that but i still wanted to understand. Why is adding more timing bad then?

 

[RIFF RAFF]

do you have the TT instruction guide ? it has all the setting adjustment's outlined in it .. if you dont i can email a copy ..

 

[RIFF RAFF]

Well I plan on racing the car. The motor is being built as we speak. I do have an TT Chip and bunch of other goodies. The houston buick club president is a good friend of mine and is good at this stuff but we are both workaholics so we dont see eachother much these days. I would of course get with him before i did that but i still wanted to understand. Why is adding more timing bad then?

it's more then adding timing . boost & fuel management have a great deal to do with adjusting timing .you cant play with one without tuning the others . if you dont get it right you dont get a second chance without spending a lot of money to fix your mistake . it either melts or you drive over your crank .both hurt !

 

[RIFF RAFF]

I added timing to my car (very little at a time) ONLY in the 1-2 gears and every time the car went faster.[/quote]leave the timing alone and take fuel away in 1-2 it will do the same thing .. lean condition . tt chips tend to run fat out of the box ..

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

I added timing to my car (very little at a time) ONLY in the 1-2 gears and every time the car went faster.

leave the timing alone and take fuel away in 1-2 it will do the same thing .. lean condition . tt chips tend to run fat out of the box ..[/quote]
fat is an understatement. i also pulled fuel on SEPARATE occasions.

any way back to
How the heck does adding/subtracting timing actually work???????

 

[Homie_Telefrag]

From what I gathered, you want to run more timing in 1st and 2ndbut stay away from too much timing in 3rd and 4th. Supposidly our motors knock pretty bad in the higher gears so most chip makers run less timing in the upper gears. My car runs a Extender chip and its set for 19* in 1st and 2nd and 16.7 in 3rd and 16.0 in 4th. With the extender chips, you're supposed to be able to adjust the timing by running a wire to the back of the console to a gray wire hanging down there and attatch it to a spot on the ecm. Through this spot with a direct scan you can tweak the timing. Ive never gotten it to work on my car, but thats the theory. If you get lucky, too much timing and you'll just dust a head gasket. But Im still trying to get into the 11s after 7 years so what do I know? X _ x

 

[GNRick]

Why is it measured in degrees? Last time I measured degrees was in high school with a protractor...or was it a thermometer?

 

[Rafs-T-Type]

Why is it measured in degrees? Last time I measured degrees was in high school with a protractor...or was it a thermometer?

Because your crankshaft and camshaft rotate 360 degrees.

 

[Rafs-T-Type]

This video should help -

 

[INEEDAGN]

Timing is mostly octane limited. If you are on pump gas you have to stay with very conservative timing levels. If you advance it too far it's gonna ping (knock) and pinging is what breaks things. Every vehicle will be different with what it can handle and even then it will vary with atmospheric conditions. That's why it's called tuning. Timing is usually dialed back a bit in 3rd and 4th because of the additional engine load making it more prone to pinging. Max boost and timing will vary a lot car to car and combo to combo. You can usuually run a couple lbs. more boost if the timing is dialed back a bit but it may not make more power that way, gotta find a happy medium in YOUR car, ideally at the track or on a dyno so you have real numbers to back up the butt dyno. Whatever you do, you will want to be monitoring knock at all times. Race fuel or alcohol injection changes the whole ball game and I won't pretend to know what you can get away with in either scenario.