After a long long fight with my car i got it to to run and idle. It idles like a champ now. I then tightened everything uip and went for a drive. As I leave and accelerated my car was bogging down like it wasnt advancing timing. I felt like i was stuck at 8* of timing. Then when i got it back home, I slowly raised the rpms up and it started to back fire. Wires are all in the right spot also. Any ideas?

 

Are you sure the it's the timing?

Do you have a timing gun to monitor advance as you change the RPM?

Is this a stock ignition? Is the harness plugged in and mating properly?
Mechanical advance sticking? Vacuum connected?

 

It has no vacuum. It is electrically controlled. It stays at a steady 8* when at idle. I havent tried trying to follow it as i rev through.

Today I went to rev it up and it was revving only to 4500rpms. My mods are a summit distributor, msd wires, and ngk tr6's.

I really am starting to think my computer is gone or something.

I have a megasquirt i tried installing before because it wouldnt idle. I found out idle was with timing so now that it idles im thinking of putting it in.

 

Advance 8* at idle means the wire to set advance at idle is disconnnected. Typical idle advance is 30* - 40* with wire hooked up.

 

Could it be possible that my wires are bad? I mean the connections are not as tight as they used to be, and I personally have never changed them. Which ive had the car for about 10k

 

Anyone? I am losing my mind slowly.

Could a bad computer make it not advance timing or possibly just overall bad timing.?

 

Do a search on "wrong ecm" (Tech boards TPI). It is a resent post and has the wiring diagram listed.



Yes, you need to unhook the tan/blk wire over by the airbox on the firewall, to set initial timing.

 

I did. Thats the reason why im so confused/

 

It is more likely and cheaper to replace the distributor module first (white box with wires plugged into it). Do not use some cheap after market. ACdelco work the best.

In a computer world, any bad connection inside or outside the "black boxes", will cause weird problems. Cars + 20yrs + computers = headaches. Lack of understanding makes it all worse. Remember as you swap parts you are plugging and unplugging the connectors, always try that first, then swap.

 

Well liek i said I got a whole new distributor. I have double and triple checked my connections. I have a megasquirt sitting around that im thinking of just putting in now.

Also I did have teh timing off before and it was a high advance like 35* base where it was backfiring out the intake on one of my cylinders. When i would rev it up it would be fine, no bog or anything. If i slammmed on the gas while driving it didnt bog either, but once i went to idle or so it would backfire again. SO I really stayed at that base timing as i drove.

 

When it backfires on idle, maybe you putting in too much fuel ?
hook the car up to and laptop and get it scanned , then youve see if it running rich and what spark adv. you have, had the similar problem, worked well when I got some rpm and speed but on idle and rew it up it "kinda" backfired, my problem was an bad injecotor. that time, the problem got back and then it was the pickup / ignition module (then I changed to a MSD distributor)...

So if you have the chance of checking with TTS Datamaster it would give you alot of info about sensors and fuelling and timing.. thats my advice to you