On all my cars, I take a small triangular file, or sometimes a hacksaw
blade, and carve a series of small notches into the rim of the crankshaft
pulley or the rim of the harmonic balancer if the car has one. The first
notch is a double, the rest are single. The spacing is such that they are
five degrees apart - I measure the diameter of the pulley, get a protractor,
get the distance between the notches at the correct diameter, and transfer
them to the pulley with a pair of dividers. I go up to 35 deg before top
dead center, with the double notch indicating TDC.
Then, I find top dead center on the engine - I personally stick the probe of
my dial indicator through the #1 spark plug hole, but using a screw driver
to show the height of the piston works ok. Now, I make a little pointer
that I bolt onto the front plate of the engine using one of the bolts
already there, and set it up so that the pointer indicates the double notch
on the pulley when the engine is at top dead center. If you put the
pointer, and the notches, near the generator/alternator, you can see it
easily from above the engine.
Now, to time the engine, I set the timing so that I get 30 - 34 deg total
advance at 5000 rpm - just rev up the engine and watch the timing mark go up
to the maximum it reaches. This lets you also check advance curves, and so
on, and lets you easily check the effect of vacumm advance to make sure that
it's working properly.
Since the engine rotates clockwise, the timing marks should be clockwise
around the crank pulley from the TDC mark. That's up and to the right!
Usually, I find that by setting the timing this way, I get very close to the
recommended factory idle timing setting, and I know that the distributor is
actually working. Also, I know that I don't have excessive total advance if
the distributor is sticking with vacumm advance, or some such problem. Also,
since I don't have any stock engines in any of my LBC's (total of 6 at this
point) the stock settings don't always work anyway.
And my favorite tool is my head - I love working out the solution to a
problem. Stems back to when I was in electronics school - I couldn't
remember all the formulas to solve all the problems, so I had to learn how
to work out the answers from basic principles - still works, on anything!
At 01:52 PM 03/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Having just adjusted my SUs, I would have to say that a digital tach (with
>dwell, dcV, and Ohms) would be first on my list. Unisyn would be nice as well.
>A note on the timing light idea--timing marks under the car are hard to see
>and the scale is short so I'd recommend you get a timing light with dial-in
>advance so you can check the car running if you so desire.
>
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