i heard that setting the timing at about 10 -12 degrees would give you a noticable power gain! how many degrees do you guys have yours set at? i am trying to find a good setting for an 89 iroc-z 5.7! thanks in advance!!

 

I had my timing set at 8* BTDC when I had an aftermarket (POS) chip in it and the engine always spark-knocked. I bumped it down to 6* and it seemed to help, but never did stop spark-knocking. When I switched back to the factory chip, all my spark-knock problems went away. I'm probably going to raise my timing back up to 8* and see what happens.

I have a stock 156,000 mile 305 TPI. Don't know how much gain you might receive from yours, but you can try a setting of 8* at first and see how that performs. As long as it don't spark-knock, you can keep going higher. But the higher your timing is set, the higher the octane you need to run. You might be able to feel a little change from bumping the timing up a few degrees, but more than likely you'll only notice that the throttle responds slightly quicker. You may have to adjust your idle RPM's as well.

 

you can keep going higher...... TO A POINT!!!!! at a certain point the timing advance will counteract the actual engine making less power... what it does is the ignition of the air/fuel mixture happens so early that the combustion actually presses against the piston as it is coming on its upstroke in the engine... which is not good...

 

I don't like doing it that way. Mine is set at 6 deg but the person who did the EPROM put the advance in the program.

Advancing the distributor is trying to cheat. Now you have an across the board advance which may be ok for some parts of the rpm curve but not so good for others. Detonation occures before you hear it. I would rather get a custom EPROM than to fiddle with advancing the distributor.