I have '98 d16y8. I got a timing light the other day and went to check my timing.

The distributer was already fully advanced (towards the firewall) which kinda shocked me.
I checked the timing with the light after jumping the connector on top of the ecu.
The timing was still retarded significantly from the red line. and not even between the white lines that are beside the red line.

Is there anything I can do to get a bit more advance out of my distributer? I tryed unplugging the IACV but it was still retarded and idled very low.

The car is still on its first timing belt.

Thanks

 

i do belive when checking the timing you are supposed to use the white mark on the crank pulley........

 

If you have a timing light WITHOUT an advance dial (or set it to zero), then you use the red mark right inbetween two smaller marks. If you use the advance dial, then you use the single white mark.

If that isn't it, then you should check your camshaft timing first...

 

You can remove the distributor and take a rat tail file to the slots and open them up for more rotational travel. This will give you a few more degrees.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Steve91 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You can remove the distributor and take a rat tail file to the slots and open them up for more rotational travel. This will give you a few more degrees.</TD></TR></TABLE>Yeah, but something else has to be wrong. I can't believe that would be needed to achieve STOCK spark timing. He's either using the timing gun incorrectly or his camshaft timing is off.

 

The car is completely stock and untouched other than an air intake. The timing belt has not been changed yet. It would be highly unlikely that it would have come stock with the cam timing off?

I looked in a service manual, which indicated that with a non-adjustable timing light the red mark on the pulley should line up with the marker. The timing is about 4 degrees retarded from stock. At full distributer advance.
I also tried reseting the ecu (which did not help) just in case it retarded the timing because of bad gas or something.
I might bust out the file for another couple of degrees adjustment, but that is pretty ghetto for a stock car to be set at stock settings.

Thanks for your opinions

 

is it possible that the timing belt is stretched slightly (@120,000km) enough to retard the camshaft and ignition timing a few degrees?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdurston &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I looked in a service manual, which indicated that with a non-adjustable timing light the red mark on the pulley should line up with the marker.</TD></TR></TABLE>Right.

Aren't you supposed to jumper the service connector while measuring spark timing?

With 120k km (75k miles) I doubt the belt is stretched much. But it's just so easy to take off the upper timing cover & check the cam timing. Please do that just to rule it out. A stretched belt won't be off by that much, but I was worried that maybe it had jumped a tooth.

 

I'll check for the cam timing this weekend.
Is it relatively common to skip a tooth for the cam timing?

Also I did jumper that connector by the ecu.

Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdurston &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Is it relatively common to skip a tooth for the cam timing?</TD></TR></TABLE>I don't think it's really common, but it is really easy to check. Thing is, I can't think of another explanation right now.

If it was my car, I'd really want to have an explanation why it happened, before I take a rat-tail file to the distributor mounting slots.