Hey all,
took my car in for a tune up today (ya ya I know, "do it yourself" etc, didnt have time and the guy did it for a small sack of weed- gotta love vancouver)

anyways my mechanic mentioned to me something about "changing the timing" something about "2 degrees" and he said I could gain 15-50 hp, but I'd be running on 92 octane fuel only.

can SOMEONE explain that to me please????
and why dont I hear about other people doing it? Is it harmful?

thanks!

 

You'd gain some power but certainly not 10-15.

 

I have heard this before, certainly not that amount of horsepower, I have yet to try this but doubt I will because I am more concerned with detonation.

 

yeah, I'm really pessimistic about this whole timing thing. I think I'll let him set it for a day and I'll see what happens, then likely tell him to change it back.


Anyone else have an idea of how my mechanic thinks changing the timing will add "15-50 whp" ?
thanks


[Modified by J-Tuner-BC, 1:06 AM 9/21/2002]

 

WOW!... I want to see dynos of that...

 

yah no kidding.. I think my mechanic is smoking entirely too much reefer

 

advancing by 2 degrees or so will possibly gain 2-3bhp at the crank so you'll be looking at 1wbhp, i had my car dyno'd a while back (JDM B18C) and the guy checked the timing before hand and it was set at +15, he dyno'd the car and it made 187bhp and after advancing it to +18 it made 189bhp, so 2bhp at the crank. (this was running on 98octane fuel so with your 93, it may be even less)

 

Why would you go to a mechanic that smokes weed, let alone provide him with some prior to working on your car?!? Particularly one that says a quick turn of the wrench will yeild that kind of a gain. That's an insult to your intelligence and to every Honda engineer on planet Earth. I wouldn't let him touch my car, heck I might prevent him from looking at it. Go buy him a beer or something, but I suggest you take your car elsewhere for work. End rant.

Yes advancing timing a couple of degrees does make a couple ponies. It causes ignition firing at a more "optimal" time resulting in a more thorough burn. You will have to make sure you do not drop below 91ish octane, but higher octane fuel does not in itself make more power, it simply helps you to avoid detonation in certain circumstances.

 

HAHAHAHAH point well said. I know he's a good mechanic though, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this. I don't know where he got this whole massive whp from changing the timing thing. Even mechanics have their bad moments right?

thanks again

 

HAHAHA 15-50hp
dude its like 2-3hp.
slap your mechanic for me.

 

I have an idea - he's a moron. I don't like to pre-judge people, but for a mechanic to actually say something this ******* stupid... man that pisses me off.

Changing the timing CAN net you an increase in HP, but as has already been said, nothing near what you're pothead friend suggested.

What you have to understand about your timing is that it works with everything else to produce power. There is an optimal ignition timing for a given setup, taking everything into consideration. In some circumstances, you can gain power by RETARDING your timing. One of the many things that you have to take into consideration is the octane of the fuel that you are running. The octane of a fuel determines how quickly the mixture inside the cylinder is burned. A lower octane fuel will cause a faster burn. Therefor, for a given octane, there is an optimal timing. It's all a circle. The only way you can know for sure what your particular motor will respond best to, is some dyno time.

 

I should have answered this earlier, a friend of mine with a crx si advanced his timing two degrees and he could never really tell if it made a difference. There is an answer in itself, if you cannot really tell, then you may as well discount the 15-50 hp range, so I will agree with everyone and say it is about 2-3 if even that. Detonation still pops into mind though...

 

Nearly everybody advances the timing on these things a bit. The exception is FI or NOS applications. Go for it, as long as you're running premium fuel like you're supposed to you won't have any trouble.

 

i would advance my timing in a heartbeat if i can get 15-20hp out of it. I checked my timing today, it was at 14-15. I plan to advance it to 18 after i change my oil and get my header and cat installed.

 

ok. I have never really messed around with timing before. But my car runs like hell. Can someone give me some advice about timing? Everyone talks about degrees and stuff. how do i check that? If I looses the 3 bolts holding the dist. on , and turn the dist, what does that do? I want to try that and see if it runs better, but I don't want to screw anything up, and I always see people talking about detonation. So i don't want to mess with it untill I understand it better.

 

I would do some asking around, that is just paranoid little me. Sorry to stir you up, I'm just a crazy ***** who worries about eveyrthing, feel free to find out what those buttons are for, unfortunately I am not aware of the answer myself, so I too will wait.

 

You gotta hook a timing light to your #1 cylinder spark plug wire. Then you project the light onto your crank pulley and it will illuminate marks as it goes around. You then rotate your distributor towards the front of thecar until you line up the 18 BTDC mark with the pointer and tighten the dist. back down. For a more detailed explanation, please visit http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/timing/timing.html
Nick

 

ok, i need to find a timing light then. for now, where about should my dist be sitting? like in the middle good?

 

If you don't know what the timing is now, to be on the safe side, I would line up the top bolt in the middle of the slot, and rotate the distributor clockwise about half way between the middle & the end of the slot.