how much timing can your engine take?

[Foxfan88]

i was tinkering around yesterday with timing and mine will take alot and run fine.

i had it at 13-14 intial with spout out, and ran it at 16, ran great and didnt act up or ping, turned it up to 18 and it still didnt seem to act up.

and this is all on 87 octane

i am running it at 16 degress initial advance. and its running fine. pulls hard and feels perfect.
just seems strange, dont really hear of cars running 16* with 87 octane

almost makes me worry if something it out of whack lol

just seeing what you guys have ran before

 

[bloopbloob]

i have had the same problem! i had it up to around 20*, never got any pinging on 87 octane. i followed all the advice from here, and i still don't know whats up. my balancer isn't spun, lines up at 0 on tdc of comp. stroke. distributor is lined up with rotor at #1 wire on cap etc. it just scares me though so i put it back down to 14* just to be safe...
i'd really like to know whats going on! maybe some fresh eyes will see this problem again!
subscribing!!

 

[Foxfan88]

lol i dont really consider it a problem but just seems odd.

 

[ninety15.0]

My car takes a lot of timing as well. I have also turned it up to 18 degrees with no pinging even at WOT ain 4th going up a hill on a hot day!. If it runs fine with no pinging then let it be. I have no worries....doesn't even concern me. Some motors like timing...

 

[ALMOST STOCK]

Or I guess another way to look at it would be; you can give it as much advance timing as you like just make sure it doesn't ping, and it's not hard to start because of so much advance timing.

 

[Deleted member 87397]

If you are running that much timing make sure you richen it up a bit or you are going to run lean.

 

[Bad92GT]

If you are running that much timing make sure you richen it up a bit or you are going to run lean.

aint that the truth.. still dealing with that.. i ran 16 degrees all summer long.. backed it down and the car ran better because i sadly didnt notice i only had 31psi on the FPR

 

[bloopbloob]

ok well i don't have an AFPR (yet), but with my mods, (see sig) should that be high on my priority list??? the exhaust still smells slightly rich... but thats at idle. could i still be lean at higher rpms? feels like i'm chasing a ghost with weird little problems with my car. can't figure it out
edit - is there any way my car could take 20* without pinging and NOT having something wrong? just seems like too much!!!

 

[LordMustangGT]

I was doing the same thing and left it at 14 and never had a problem till a hot day at the track and the motor a little warmer than normal got ping in the top end of 4th. put 100 in rigth there and went away. everyone just be careful, blow a headgasket in no time!

 

[Roland69]

mine is at 13* spout out and I can get slight pinging under hard accel....I put 91 in it and I get none. I was going to try 14* than maby 15* but it seems to work good at 13*

 

[MatthewP]

These cars make best power on pump gas between 30 and 32 degrees total. 14 degrees initial will give you 30 degrees total. If you are running more than 16 degrees initial, you will be giving back power whether it pings audibly or not.

-Matthew

 

[Darkwriter77]

As someone has previously stated (Hissin50, IIRC), the powerband will drop off BEFORE you hear pinging. So the rule of thumb when advancing your timing is to keep bumping it up until you get to a point where you experience ping, then back it off by about 2 degrees - not only to be safe, but to be at the peak of where your motor best runs.

With mine, I've ran it as high as about 17* and got just a little ping on 91 octane, so I backed it down and I'm running about 14* for safety's sake. The hotter it gets down here in the desert, the harder it seems to be to run extra timing before you start getting detonation; I could run 16* all winter long here, but I really don't feel a difference between that and 14* and besides ... the ethanol fuel blend during those months is even worse than the MTBE crap we're force-fed the other 6 months of the year.

 

[HISSIN50]

Very good thoughts on this thread. DW, that is indeed something I've posted, backed up by dyno logs. There's actually pinging occurring when we run optimally - we just can't hear it.

There are enough variables with even the basically RPM based puter (let alone 5N95 load-based processors). Some of you guys have non-stock heads (even if still iron). Some have fresh bottom ends, different quench scenarios, aftermarket MAF set-ups, etc. Then as DW wisely noted, ambient and operating temps play into it big. You guys are smart - you just run what works for you since there is no magic number. And even if there was, we listen for pinging no matter where we set the timing (we really set timing by ear, not by numbers. I only know numbers so I can compare to what you guys do). Then again, I'm the same guy who synchs carbs with a piece of vac line jambed in my ear.