its always the dumb things that seem to kick your ass!

[Foxfan88]

lol most of u guys have noticed recent topics about my car being down on power and what not, making low numbers and slower times that i expected.

well
i checked everything, plugs, compression etc and all way good. checked timing and set it to what i THOUGHT was right.

a long time ago when i first had my car, i bought a cheap inductive timing light, didnt have the advance setting, you couldnt move the dial and set it to 0 like the good lights.

so when i had this cheaper light i marked my balancer at 10degress and 15 degress. so i had some lines to go by. as time went on i sort of forgot about those marks being on 10 and 15.

well recently for the last few months i have used other peoples timing lights, that have the nice advance setting. well i always set the light to 12 or so and turned my balancer to my big mark on my balancer ( at this time i didnt know the mark was at 10degrees) i assumed my mark was 0 because i forgot about it being 10

car would always run funny, hard starting and everything.

i finally buckled down and bought me a good light and went home, before i checked it i got under the car to check my marks, and then i FINALLY discovered i had no marks on 0, all my timing adjustments have been 10degrees off from what i thought it was. so i set it at 10-12 before and it was actually 10 degrees off.

i marked 0 on the balancer, set the timing to a true 12 degrees and the car RUNS like a TOP for the first time in a while, starts up effortlessly, gained power and overall runs alot better.

i was like damn.

its always the small stuff that gets you.
this may have contributed HEAVILY to my dyno numbers and track times.

so... how much HP/TQ do u think i lost with the timing so far off.
and how much mph should it pick up in the 1/4?

and was the timing advanced 10 or retarded 10 before. it never spark knocked on me so i am thinking it was actually set at 0 degrees BTDC before i found out the mark problem. if i am wrong please correct me i tried to figure it out and got confused

 

[GTOreturns]

If it was at 0 it wouldnt run. If it were at 20 it would knock like a beach!

 

[DMAN302]

agreed...not sure she'd run at 0...and detonate like a mother at 20.

 

[jrichker]

It will run at 0, but it won't run well. On the other hand, 20 degrees will cause idle problems along with the other things you describe

 

[Foxfan88]

i duno where it was at but it wasnt running near as good as it does now.

 

[Mustang78]

in my young and stupid day(yup, just one day) i set my timing to 10* ATDC...it ran but the idle slowed down considerably..i thought it was normal and it was way of when i bought the car..a fe wmonths ago i set it correctly to 12* BTDC and it runs awesome, MUCH better than before, it gained a good 20-30HP and probably as a result of this long lost power my clutch is slipping..so its both good and bad. Now i can beat my friends 05 mustang V6

~Mark~

 

[RYC CUKR]

I once forgot to plug the spout connector back in. Took a few trips to the store and such to realize what I had done. Luckily it was still sitting there on top of the radiator.

 

[Darkwriter77]

I always drop my spout connector in the same pocket as my keys, so that way my hand will run into them when I go for the keys to start the car, and I don't wind up forgetting to put the thing back in. Trying to idiot-proof things against my own idiocy.

It's POSSIBLE to run at 0 degrees, but it idles so low and crappy that there's almost no way you could mistakenly do that and not know you've got it set wayyyyy wrong. Same applies to setting it at 20 degrees; I don't care if you're running 93 octane, you'll surely be getting all kinds of pinging at that point, so it'd be darn near impossible to miss.

Nevertheless, I totally agree, it's always the little things that get overlooked when looking at the big picture. Had an issue for a long time where I kept thinking there was something wrong with my clutch or clutch cable in that I had a hard time pushing the shifter into gear, even with the pedal mashed to the floor; turns out it was the friggin' floor mat getting bunched up behind the pedal, preventing it from going all the way down to fully disengage the clutch. Took those mats out, bought some thinner and better-fitting ones, and suddenly all my clutching problems evaporated. I was about ready to buy a whole new shifter, or even worry that I had bent shift forks or something at that point...