Can't seem to find any old threads relating to my problem, so hoping someone can help me out.
I'm trying to set the base timing for my car after a bunch of maintenance which included intake manifold gaskets and valve seals so my distributor has been out and engine turned over by hand a bunch of times to do the seals.
Everything is all back together and I dropped the distributor back in at tdc on cylinder one, rotor pointing at cylinder 1.
Basically what I want to know is, why when I disconnect the est wire (tan and black, top right hand corner of the engine bay) and point my timing light at the timing tab, my marked white line on the balancer doesn't come around, like it isn't turning at all, but when I re connect the wire, I can see the white line and its set at 10° btdc ?
I have left it at 10° advanced cause it seems ok for now, but I haven't been able to take it for a test drive yet.
Any help is much appreciated.

 

It should be a few degrees BTDC with the connector disconnected. Stock setting is something like 6°. The car will probably run better with a few degrees more. Then when it's reconnected it should gain somewhere about 15° more.

If it's at 10° BTDC with it connected, the car will probably run real lazy, get terrible gas mileage, and likely run hot.

 

In other words, you need to disconnect it and adjust the distributor some more. The reason you couldnt see it was that it was so far off, it wasnt showing on the tab.

 

Wow it must be way off, I'll be able to check in a few hours, thanks for the help.

 

Ok, so it was way off. I disconnected the est wire, turned the distributor till it was at 6°btdc, tightened down the bolt, turned it off, reconnected the est wire, disconnect the battery for a bit to clear the 42 code and started it up, timing settled on around 15/16°btdc. Seems to idle fine... anything else you guys think ? I still have to flush the cooling system really well cause the car sat for a while prior to all this work so once its got nice fresh coolant I'll check again, not sure if the fresh coolant will change operating temp and timing (first time doing this so it's all new knowledge to me) but couldn't hurt to check again i suppose.

 

Sounds like you got it. Coolant temp shouldn’t matter for setting base timing.

 

Not too sure what happened, managed to get a pic of where the timing is at, is this too high ? When I disconnect the est base is still set at 6°btdc, it maintains this level of advance (in the pic) when connected, idles at around 750/800 in park, I still can't test drive it yet but it feels like it has a little hesitation when I tap the accelerator....

 

If you are at 6 BTDC at idle with the distributor wire disconnected, that's correct. When you reconnect the wire, the timing will advance.

 

Please allow me to paraphrase one of the GOATs in a totally unrelated field:

"If it RUNS good, it IS good."

Don't overthink it. Adjust it to where it RUNS the best. YOU AND YOU ALONE get to decide where that is. "Spec" serves MANY masters: emissions, CAFE (that's a US thing), emissions, fuel quality variations, emissions, altitude, emissions, and maybe a few other things, including emissions. Oh did I forget to mention? probably the single most important factor in setting the "factory spec" was EMISSIONS. If that isn't the most important factor TO YOU, you can change it. I encourage you to experiment.

We have a word for that type of experimentation. We call it TUNING.

 

Ok great, thanks guys. Sofakingdom, your knowledge knows no bounds 😄😄 thanks for all your advice across my recent threads.