can someone kindly tell me about setting the

[240sxspeedracer1]

Some people talk about adjusting the timing of the car, how is that done?  Also, theywere talking about optimum degrees in certain temperatures outside, like in the winter the said 24
and then in the summer like 20
I'm not sure, does anybody know informaion about this?
appreciate it, thanks

[bbp]

OK, I have a couple of beer in me, so here it goes....


Timing is the amount of advance or retard of the spark on the ignition.  A motor will have a piston that travels up and down.  If the timing is set at top dead center, or when the piston is at the furthest point in its travel upward before begin it's downward stroke... would be considered 0.  This is measured by notches located on the main crank pulley.

If you set your timing to xx degrees advance, (which is acheived by turning the distributor) then the spark will occur xx degrees (on a complete rev) BEFORE the piston reaches TDC.  and vise versa for retard.

Generally to acheive max performance you want as much advance without predetonation (when the piston is still travelling up, and the spark and dentonation forces it back down, also know as pinging or pinking to the brits).  The knock sensors in most modern day cars will correct this for you.  Timing used to be much more important when points and distributors controlled ignition timing... nowadays the computer will do most of the adjusting for yuo depending on how it reads the mixture.

I think I may know my shit after a few brewskys!!! &nbsp; .... &nbsp;maybe not <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/nervous.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':nervous:'>

[240meowth]

i don't know how to set the timing exactly, but from what i understeand, if you advance your timing (or retrad, i forgot), it will improve your horsepower by a tad bit... &nbsp;but in return, you will need to run 93 octang (or 91 for sad people like me that don't get 93), if you don't, it will denote, ping, kock, expload and inpload at the same time while causing a reaction similart to a nuclear explosion, thus everyone in the 1 mile radius will die, and radiation will travel up to 3 miles...

[adey]

woah thanks bbp, that was a really useful (though short) post.

Am I correct in inferring that those gears with the adjustable centers are what's used to manually adjust timing? I often see on belt-(with-teeth)-driven (as opposed to chain-driven) cam turning things (what the heck are they called... pulleys??...) small scales as seen on protractors. Is this where timing is manually adjusted?
If not, what are those things for?
How then, do you adjust timing on a chain-driven engine such as the KA24DE and SR20DETs?
If I'm not mistaken, the CA18DET is toothed-belt-driven...

thanks!

[hotdogg]

You are thinking of adjustable cam gears adey.