Everyone keeps telling me different things, can someone please send me in the right direction!

Heres a pic I got off here:



And here is a pic of my timing tab, is this correct?

 

Looks right to me.

 

That's what my tab looks like, I have mine set at 6 and it seems to be working well.

 

That is CORRECT!

 

Looks right on to me!

 

when my ditributer got all fu cked.. i went through the same problem, but it looks fine to me, are you trying to advance your timming?

 

Got it all figured out, that picture posted is correct. I bumped the timing to 10 degrees.

 

IROCThe5.7L,
What's up with this? You are a board Moderator with over 3,600 posts and you were confused about the timing tab marks?..... I'll give you credit for the nice diagrams, but I'm shocked that you stumbled on this one. Oh well, I guess we all have our weak points, I'm no exception.

 

Lol, I am not the know all of thirdgen cars because I am a mod. When searching to make sure I was reading the tab correctly, I got two different results. So I created a thread to make sure I was right.

 

My mechanic had my timing wrong because of this timing tab. It has that extra notch at the bottom and unless you really pay attention to it you'll think you're at 6 when you're at 0 (which I did). It gave me all kinds of weird idle hunting issues, when I took my lower off and such I turned the light on and set it, when I was messing with the air box I noticed the extra notch and came in to see if I could find the same timing tab, so I feel where he's coming from. When the timing light's hitting it it's hard to notice the deeper notch. I'm guessing no matter which tab the deeper notch is 0? Because there's 2 or 3 different types of factory timing tabs.

 

Funny that you would say that. I had my car worked on by Mr. Goodwrench at our Chevy Dealership and when I got the car home they had set the timing to 0 deg.

Maybe it's a common mistake.

 

this website is made to ask questions...so he asked a question... no harm in that... he was not sure about something he has the right as a member here to ask.. i have asked my share of questions here, and trust me it payed off. mnorton you have saved me from some stupid questions that i didnt know the answer to...trust me it was much thanked....i have now learned no much more because of people answering questions of mine

 

Ouch!! My bad.. And you're welcome! Glad I could help.

 

First time toying with this 88' 305TBI I have. I have the Factory manual with a horrible diagram that shows zero being all the way to the right and all the teeth being uniform size.

My timing plate on the current '88 305 is identical; but is also in a different spot than on my 87' 350, which made me search for this post. When I looked at the plate I saw the large notch which I thought was zero (as on my '87 5.7), but again manual illustration was horrible and not similar.

Needless to say the idiots who did my "tune-up" down here in TN got the timing way retarded (how fitting).

Good thing I had my timing light fedex'ed to me.

So question is since marks on my 88' 305 are in a different spot than on my 87' 350, are the balancers (or at least the notch) different as well?

Reason I ask is my '87 engine is replacing the 305 in a few weeks.

 

That actually wasn't a mistake on the mechanic's part. If you notice, the member that posted that owns an L03 powered RS car. The factory setting for the timing on these cars is indeed 0 degrees, while it's usually 6 degrees advance on TPI cars. Before I ditched my stock flat hood for an Iroc hood, the info sticker on my original hood called for 0 degrees initial timing with the EST disconnected. I can tell you this as well though, they run like dogsh*t at 0 degrees! I have my L03 set around 8-10 degrees advanced right now, and it runs wayyyy better than it did set at 0! The only time I ever set mine back close to around 0 degrees is when it's time to go see the emissions guy once a year. Oops, had to edit. I just looked at the above post again and noticed it was Mnorton's car that Mr. Goodwrench timed at 0 degrees. He must've been thinking about the L03 timing specs when he timed your LB9. Lol.

 

Yea, I didn't notice that the timing was wrong until I took the car in to another shop to be smog checked. The smog tech told me that the timing was set to zero, and that he was going to fail the car unless I set it to 6 degs. He offered to set it for me for a $15 fee. I was so tired of all the crap that was going wrong with my car that I just told him to set it and do the smog check.

Sometimes it just seems like you can't win...

 

That is an excellent photograph of a timing tab, and a correct description of interpreting the markings.

However, it's an aftermarket timing tab, and is located at the old 1:30 location on the timing cover. If the harmonic balancer is the original stock one for that engine, then the location of the mark on it is designed to line up with a timing tab that puts 0 degrees at near the 12:00 position.

Meaning, no matter what a LIGHT says the "timing" is, the spark is occurring about 35 degrees retarded from where it's supposed to be. I.e., light says 6 degrees BTDC, reality is 29 degrees ATDC.

So I'd suggest before getting all worked up over the difference between 0 and 6 degrees as being "correct" for the different induction systems, you first find out where #1 TDC REALLY IS, by observing the #1 or #6 piston; and see if the marks line up. I'm betting they won't even come close.

 

I'm sorry, it's been a long morning. Are you referring to me when you say the timing tab is not stock? I'm 95% sure it is...?

 

The tab in the photo looks just like the stock tab on my 1987 LB9. It's at the 1:30 position, and I have checked TDC on the #1 piston, it lines up perfectly with the 0 deg. notch.