Timing My 88

If you don't own a timing light or have access to one, you can forget about setting the timing. You'll never get it right without one.

Setting the timing:
Paint the mark on the harmonic balancer with paint -choose 10 degrees BTC or 14 degrees BTC or something else if you have NO2 or other power adder. I try to paint TDC red, 10 degrees BTC white and 14 degrees BTC blue.

10 degrees BTC is towards the drivers side marks.

Note: setting the timing beyond the 10 degree mark will give you a little more low speed acceleration. BUT you will need to run 93 octane to avoid pinging and engine damage. Pinging is very hard to hear at full throttle, so it could be present and you would not hear it.

Simplified diagram of what it looks like. Not all the marks are shown for ease of viewing.

ATC ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '!' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' BTC
---------------- > Direction of Rotation as viewed standing in front of the engine.

The ' is 2 degrees.
The ! is TDC
The ' is 10 degrees BTC
Set the timing 5 marks BTC. Or if you prefer, 5 marks towards the driver's side to get 10 degrees.

To get 14 degrees, set it 7 marks BTC. Or if you prefer, 7 marks towards the driver's side to get 14 degrees.

The paint marks you make are your friends if you do it correctly. They are much easier to see that the marks machined into the harmonic balancer hub.

Make sure that you set he timing when the engine is up to operating temperature.

At this point hook up all the wires, get out the timing light. Connect timing light up to battery & #1 spark plug.

Remove the SPOUT connector (do a search if you want a picture of the SPOUT connector) It is the 2 pin rectangular plug on the distributor wiring harness. Only the EFI Mustang engines have a SPOUT. If yours is not EFI, check for a SPOUT: if you don’t find one, skip any instructions regarding the SPOUT
Warning: there are only two places the SPOUT should be when you time the engine. The first place is in your pocket while you are setting the timing and the second is back in the harness when you finish. The little bugger is too easy to lose and too hard to find a replacement.

Start engine, loosen distributor hold down with a 1/2" universal socket. Shine the timing light on the marks and turn the distributor until the mark lines up with the edge of the timing pointer. Tighten down the distributor hold down bolt, Replace the SPOUT connector and you are done.

The HO firing order is 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8.
Non HO firing order is 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8

Start at 10 BTDC with the spout out, then work up to 14. That E cam doesn't make much power until 3k, and you kept the stock heads and intake, which are choke points.

mikestang63 said:

Start at 10 BTDC with the spout out, then work up to 14. That E cam doesn't make much power until 3k, and you kept the stock heads and intake, which are choke points.

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...and if he's got a 3.08 in it will be kinda a dog down low. Hated my low end grunt until the 3.55 swap.

My e cam works pretty good down low... oh, thats because its got a little boost pushin it

So the 302 prefers an idle timing of about 10 degrees BTDC. What about total timing, vacuum advance etc? I suppose those would be things that would have to be determined per engine as none operate 100 percent the same (plugs, gas, other variables)

mikestang63 said:

Start at 10 BTDC with the spout out, then work up to 14.

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^^ This ^^

10 degrees is stock. start with that and see how it runs. Ive heard guy say raise it till it pings, then turn it back down?? The farther past stock u run the higher rated gas u have to run. I ran a spacer for a while and ended up taking it off. It felt to me like it pushed up my crusing rpm up a few hundred

madspeed said:

^^ This ^^

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I'm blind, thanks for pointing that out

oldskolbus said:

10 degrees is stock. start with that and see how it runs. Ive heard guy say raise it till it pings, then turn it back down?? The farther past stock u run the higher rated gas u have to run.

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Thats important to note as you mentioned. If your ignition timing gets too far advanced and you are using a lower octane fuel(i.e 87) you will run into detonation (spark knock) because the fuel is more susceptible to pre-ignition than a higher octane fuel (i.e 93). Not only that, too far advanced ignition timing and you will begin preventing your engine from running efficiently in terms of thermal efficiency. General rule of thumb: Advancing spark timing increases knock sensitivity while retarding spark timing decreases knock sensitivity.

with the crappy gas blends today-ethanol itself lowers the octane by as much as 10%- you need to run 91-93 if you plan on running higher than stock timing. Each car is different so your car may be different.

To check total timing, once it is all warmed up and your timing set, put the spout back in and rev the engine to about 3000 rpm and look at the timing on the balancer.

oldskolbus said:

Ive heard guy say raise it till it pings, then turn it back down??

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In my opinion this is bad advice. Ping is a function of several different things and timing is just one of them. A good clean cylinder head/piston may be able to take well past optimal timing without pinging. There will be some variation but I would say in the 12-16 degree range should get optimal performance in most cases. Myself I get best power with 12 degree on my GT40ps, noticeable decrease if I go past 14. I think E7s might like a bit more than GT40ps.