Setting ignition timing?

Post by **Merlin** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:01 am

Dino wrote:Rich set-up the cam gears, so no need to fiddle with them.

Yup I was never intending to.

Yesterday we did the timing on Vanzep's car. Apart from burning the back of my hand on his Hytech replica it was all good. Setting the timing was very easy and initial reports were that the car was running much better.

I tried to set the timing on my car with little success. Upon accessing the ECU and hitting the "Set Timing" button, the engine switches itself off, so I must be doing something wrong. On top of this I partially borked it. I accidentally hit "Test Upload" button (it is right next to the "Set Timing" button), so it uploaded my map but with a 2500 rev limiter

Until I found out what I had done there was much swearing and panicking

. I'll get it sorted out this week.

Setting the timing on a stock engine is so much easier

Post by **Merlin** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 12:24 pm

And I have just found out what I think I was doing wrong. You need to set the Hondata to "Realtime Update"

The Hondata manual doesn't tell you to do this, chumps, or maybe newbs shouldn't be mucking around with it

BMCC · Post by **BMCC** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:36 pm

So was it a case of rotating the distributor on Vanzeps car to alter the base ignition timing?

Post by **Merlin** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 1:39 pm

Yes, once you tell the ECU to stop ignition advance and the ECU assumes you have a stock idle, you rotate the distributor until the 15 BTDC lines up with the two markers on the gearbox housing.

The only issue we had was arguing what was cylinder number 1, timing belt side or distributor side, it is timing belt side

Which makes no sense because if you look in the service manual distributor settings it describes the firing order completely differently

.

NCCMUR · Post by **NCCMUR** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 2:53 pm

So in a 5th with OBD II the ignition timing is controlled by the ecu then?

Post by **Merlin** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 2:57 pm

All ignition advance is controlled by ECU's but in the 5th gen you can't set base ignition timing (the reference point for the ECU's timing advance). It is statically set to 15 BTDC. The 5th gen service manual shows you how to see if your timing is set correctly but says if you timing is out your ECU is junk.

BMCC · Post by **BMCC** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 3:38 pm

I think it has to do with the fact that the 4th gen has the crank and tdc sensors in the distributor while they are not on the 5th Gen. As the crank position sensor is the main sensor used for ignition timing then moving the distributor on the 4th gen will move the base timing.

Post by **vanzep** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:15 am

after the results from the dyno day and the technician telling me that my graph looked like that of a turbo car and it was overfuelling i had to look into this (with some help)
i can tell you it worked at treat on mine

i dont know where exactly how much it was out but the timing mark on the flywheel wasnt visible at first we had to do a fair bit of turning to get it into view through the inspection hole and then we had 3 or 4 goes at rotating it forward to get it set - so it needed a lot of adjustment

once youve seen it done it look fairly easy thing to check prior to any mot or every so often - we used a 14 year old timing light and it worked just fine

Post by **Merlin** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:36 pm

I think there is more to adjust on your car. I have been on an ATR forum asking bout the ATR fly wheel and the H22a7 is the same as the Lude (15 BTDC) so it should have the same marks on it so you can check the timing.

This is a pic of the Prelude flywheel:

When we adjusted your timing we advanced it only (rotating the distributor towards the firewall) and the big plus eventually came into view. At first the big plus was out of sight beyond the bottom of the window. As we advanced the timing the big plus rose up from the bottom of the window. We assumed that since we had advanced it so much the big plus must be 15 BTDC (the top and bottom of the plus representing +/- 2) but it appears that isnt the case.

We need to try and advance it even more to get to the correct setting.

The ATR flywheel is the same as the Lude in that It can only attach to the crank one way due to the dowel / mounting pin.

Turning the engine over by hand will give us the opportunity to see what marks are on the flywheel

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:50 pm

So you're saying that on vanzep's car, you couldn't see the big plus, or the 3 timing marks before you started playing with it?

That's a massive distance to cover and would mean the timing was so far out before, that I'm surprised the car even ran?