Quickie Timing Question
 

I'm running 13 degrees of timing right now, but I want to run more. I've been giving her nothing but 93 octane for the past month or two now, and plan to keep it that way. How much timing can I run without pinging on 93 octane? I know I can listen for pings at idle and back it off, but I'm afraid it'll ping farther up the rpms and with that exhaust as loud as it is, I highly doubt it'd be able to hear it. I'm thinking 15...

Anyone? Thanks.

First of all you will not see a dramatic diff of power to go to 15deg. If you increase the timming a point at a time, go drive the car, get at 3000 in 5th and mash it, this is where you will here the valves the best. Watch the heat also.

I'm an automatic.....but I can get to 3000 in 4th on the highway..it's somewhere in the 90-ish mph department I estimate. Not sure with the 4.10's, but I know ~5000 rpms in 3rd is 90-95 mph.

What I'm looking for is giddyup.. The throttle response seems to be sluggish lately, and I was hoping an extra few degrees will help buffer it until I figure out what's going on. Car seems unwilling to go for a second when I slam the pedal..like nothing happens....kickdown seems a tad sluggish too, even though it's more sensitive than normal because of upped tranny pressure.

My plugwires could stand to be replaced, and I havent checked my coil spark but I'm sure it's not pure white like it should be. Getting a new coil when I get my MSD 6AL box and harness, along with 8.5 Superconductor wires. Gonna do my whole ignition system as MSD. Already got the cap and rotor (Big freakin deal, I know) ;)

Re: Quickie Timing Question
 

Experiment. Youll hear it. I ran my 93 AOD with up to 18 degrees initial with 87 gas with no problems.

From what ive seen timing varies from car to car. What works for one guy might not work for the nest. The only way to find out is to experiment.

very true, my 95 pinged like no ones business when she was stock w/14* but when i put aluminum heads on, i could bump it to 16* with no problems

test and tune, you will hear it trust me, it is a higher pitch than your exhaust. and the car will be slugish until you back off a little if you have too much. You want run the lowest octane possible without pinging. I would try 91 octane to strat with and see if it pings or is lugish, then adjust timing from there, if nothing works then go 93. Good luck

Another factor is the age of your timing chain. A stretched chain could cause some cam/distributor flutter, effectively shifting the base timing a few degrees in either direction.

I think play between the distributor and cam gears can have the same effect. Anybody know what the allowable distributor play is (measured at the rotor)?

I'm curious because...I ran 87 octane in the car once by mistake when I first got it, and then checked the timing to discover a reading of 20 degrees of base timing. Never heard a single ping. I was like "WHAT THE *****".... :rolleyes:

The harmonic balancer was shot and losing rubber so I don't know if it was off, but I can tell you that I backed the timing off to 10 degrees and it didn't run much different, just got a little more sluggish...and it started easier. Now I did have 4 broken fuel injectors then and a host of bad sensors causing the car to run ice cold and extremely rich... I have new injectors and all that now and a new balancer and the timing is holding at a steady 13.