Sorry for my ignorance with this stuff. I'm lightly "back in the game" after 15 years of driving just to get back and forth to work and on vacations-----a lot of my former knowledge of engine systems is on older stuff, before all this computer-controlled business.

Now I find myself with a new toy---a '92 RS 5-speed with an L03. I kind of wanted an "animal", which this car probably won't be, but it looks, sounds and drives like what I wanted, short of the power. I'm kinda having fun exploring ways to pick up a little power "on the cheap"---the car had 3" exhaust with the cat removed when I got it, but it was trying to run on the stock aircleaner system with a filthy K&N element inside. I changed over to an open element, and the feel and sound were worth 5x the investment. Now exploring my next move...by the way, this car will not be going to the strip, and I won't be quoting any 1/4 mile times here...

Changing the timing, in the old days, meant you disconnected the vacuum advance and read the timing marks while you twisted the distributor around. From what I'm gathering, the ECM does the timing adjustment on these cars by reading input fom sensors, and doing what it's programmed to do by the software in the chip.

Just curious---I keep reading posts about people bumping their timing up a few degrees---do you have to burn a new chip every time you want to change the timing? If you physically rotate the distributor, does the ECM detect this and compensate for it? Is there a tech article on timing that I missed here somewhere?

Like many others, I am looking for maximum "bang for the buck".
I am fully aware that I bought a car with a 170 hp motor, and I'm not gonna make an animal out of this car on the cheap. As a "Sunday driver", though, I like the idea that these engines can easily see 150-200k miles (mine has 90k orig), so reliability is a big factor.

This website is absolutely awesome. It's helping make this long-term project more of a hobby than an ongoing PITA.

Thanks for replies and ideas.

 

You can still increase/advance your base timing, instead of disconnecting the vac advance, you now disconnect the EST bypass connector...set the base timing where you want, cinch the distributor back down, shut the engine off, then reconnect the bypass connector.

Not sure exactly where on a TBI engine the bypass connector is at, but on my '89 IROC (TPI) it's a single-wire connector that near the pass side strut tower. IIRC. tan w/black stripe or vice-versa.

Head over to the TBI board, should be lot's of info to get you some "oomph" over there.