I just got my 88 lb9 together a couple of days ago (head gaskets,comp cams 1.6:1 rockers,ported and polished heads and intake,bosch 3 injectors, cloyes double roller timing chain,msd distributor, 981 springs and otherwise a stock motor), I had initially set the timing to 6 degrees. The car had a bit of a stumble when stabbing the throttle and not much pull, sounded like garbage under acceleration at low rpm. My father told me we should fine tune the timing, keep advancing until it pings and then back it off a degree or until it stops. At this point this is where you will make the most power. We got all the way up to 14 degrees and ran out of time to work and we were at the edge of the timing tab. Every time we would advance it two degrees and the car would run better and better. Now at this point the car is running better than it ever has, perfect. Then today I went to start it cold and it did not want to start. After about a minute of cranking it finally starts, runs rough, then smooth-ens out warms up and then dies, all on it's own just as you think everything's fine, once I got it the road and opened it up it ran great just like yesterday, better than it ever has performance wise, the exhaust note sounded better, everything is better than ever. After doing a little research I read that the computer sets the timing and anything besides stock setting is just messing with the computer. I would assume the new quirks are because of the timing adjustment, Is the only fix to this to set the base timing back to say 6 and get the computer tuning stuff to advance the timing on the prom? If there was something more affordable out there it would be nice? The difference in power and overall performance is like night and day, I really like the advanced timing. Any insight would be appreciated.

 

Have you considered your power improvement may be from the heads and cam ; not from the timing?

Correct.
Once the ECM takes control of the advance it will give you what is programmed in tune.
If you have to much advance and it causes knock counts ( that you can't hear ) the ECM will retard the spark until the knock goes away.

Given the mods you have done I would suggest you are up for a custom tune anyway ,
not just changing the SA
A tuner like PCMforless will do a custom tune to suit your engine for $185
http://www.pcmforless.com/index.php?...per&Itemid=312

All you need to do is supply your specs in the ordersheet
http://www.pcmforless.com/index.php?...id=2&Itemid=43

 

I think the heads and cam are definitely making a difference, I left out a couple of things for space sake, I had .012 taken off for good measure because I detected some warping, I lapped and cleaned the valves and installed new valve seals as well as gasket match port and polish of the entire induction system. With the rockers I am getting quite a bit more lift, my stock cam is .415 and .430 with 1.5 ratio, so a pretty significant gain in lift. I think it is correlated to the timing because my father and I would advance the timing two degrees, then get to a main road and do the quarter mile test. From a rolling start in first gear at an idle I would push the pedal to the floor as quickly as possible. This would was used to measure "stumble" and overall performance. When we hit twelve degrees the car actually broke loose and chirped them in second with no hesitation whatsoever. Twelve degrees was the first test that showed no signs of hesitation. We only went for fourteen because we could not hear any detectable pinging and wanted to see what would happen. So it seems like a very direct correlation between timing and performance and stumbling as well as just pushing the pedal down a little throttle response. I am no expert this is my first time attempting to tune and perfect tuned port injection.

On the prom part, do you think it would make sense just to bite the bullet and dive into tuning it myself for example with the ostrich, the only thing that worries me about buying a chip from a programmer is that the price of two chips is about equal to what it would cost for a ostrich and a program?

I am very new to this and I may not be grasping the big picture here. Am I incorrect to say the timing is causing the increase?

It just clicked

Do you mean that mods are putting everything out of whack and timing is bringing them together, but the wrong way? The right way would be to adjust the rest of the parameters in the custom chip to match the mods and then the ridiculous amount of timing would not be necessary to make it run right? Which could relatively speaking best be performed by an expert who knows all of the parameters to be adjusted in the chip, not just the timing. Correct?

 

Possibly
A example from personal experience.
I put a out of the box jetted 750HP carb and MSD race dist on my new 383 engine.
I put a faster advance on the spark advance but did not change total
Ran awesome SOTP
Dynoed 391 RWHP but way rich.
Reduced fuel and it dropped to 355Hp because too much spark.
Limited spark advance and it made 410Hp.
Obviously the extra SA was covering up the richness or vice versa

 

Thanks for all of the advice I have a new problem now, I lost spark all together. I thought I was flooding the engine the whole time it was starting hard on account of the advanced timing. After cleaning the plugs and then replacing them I discovered I had no spark at all. The shop manual said to pull the four wire connector and check, no spark. Then it said to check for spark at the coil, so I took one of the old plugs and put in the coil wire and it had good spark. The manual says to check the cap and rotor and thats it. So It was brand new less than a hundred miles ago but I figured maybe it could somehow be defective because the spark was making it to the distributor from the coil but not out of it. I went and bought a new cap and rotor and set the distributor and still nothing. Being thoroughly confused I called my dads friend and he told me to put my old distributor back it because we know it is good. I did it and still nothing. I have never seen anything like it and have no idea why this would happen any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

this is incorect the ecm has no way to tell what actual advance is

if base timming is supposed to be 6* the ecm at a given load and rpm calls in for x amount of advance in degrees

so examlple one is

base is set to 6 per the underhood sticker at 2500 rpms and 50% throttle the ecm calls for 15* of advance u get a total timing number of 21*

now the same theroteical senario as above except this time u set the base timing to be 12* again at 2500 rpms and 50% throttle the ecm calls for 15* advance

this time u end up with an actual timing number of 27*


the base number is there so that u get the exact amount of advance the ecm calls for if u advance past 6* base u get however far advanced u are from 6* added to what the ecm calls for.

the same also goes for if u have the base timing retarded instead of advanced



to the op the reason u are having a hard time starting is because of the amount of advance u have added, what u can do is wire up a toggle switch and relay to the coil power wire. with the toggle switch off the coil gets no power so it cant fire.

what u would do is leave the switch off and start cranking once the engine reaches maximum cranking speed, then u flip the switch to power up the coil.


we do this on mostly race cars that run a lock out distributor to cure the hard starting since there is no way to retard the timing during cranking

 

wrong wording.

 

Thanks for all of the advise I have learned a lot. For starters the extra timing is most likely picking up the slack for a tune now unsuited for my engine. Second, hard starting is normal for an engine with above average advance, with a solution I would like to try. Thanks a lot for the insight and sharing your past experiences it is very helpful. I am curious if it is connected or coincidental that after playing with the timing I lost spark from the distributor and how much of the hard starting issue was coming from the timing vs. a component problem???? that I have yet to figure out. This morning I retraced all of my grounds and discovered when I put my heads back on I forgot to hook up the two grounds that go to the computer from the passenger side cylinder head. I wonder if I fried my computer with this genius move. I can't wrap my head around the fact that the coil makes spark and it's not traveling through the cap then rotor to the plug wire. I don't see how it's physically possible for it not to go in one side and out the other. I know the distributor is physically set right, I swapped out distributors with one I know works that proves to me the ignition module and the distributor itself is functioning properly. I have tried two different caps and rotors besides the msd that has less a hundred miles on it. I should try to find my old coil because I have the msd blaster direct replacement coil currently on the car. Maybe it's just not strong enough to push the spark through and my coil is defective. The ESC module was new two years ago from AC Delco, given the ground situations I wander if I did fry the computer.

 

Update I did the coil test checking resistance and it tested bad. Went and bought a parts plus brand one and I got spark through the cap and rotor. The msd blaster coil was only two years old.

 

not really
the ecm relies on the intial/base timing to be set correctly. other then that it has no idea what actual advance is.other then it commanding say 8 or 12 or 15* etc. i.e if the table calls for 30* total and the dizzy should be set at 6* it would command a 24* advance to reach the total number of 30*.
if u have the base set at 10* the ecm would still command a 24* advance and u would end up with 34* total.the ecm would not know that it was 4* over what it should be

the ecm always assumes the base number is what is specified for the application

 

ive seen alot of ppl posting about msd coils going bad lately among other msd products

 

Acknowledged
When I wrote it I was thinking about the max spark figure and the differences in how the initial advance is referenced differently in the two TPI spark setups

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/post...475-post4.html

 

After I got my new coil in and running I started pulling codes. So far the dead list is? MSD Blaster coil, MSD ignition module which is soldered to the pick up and costs over $60 so I just put my old distributor back in and I believe my 2 year old MAF sensor. I followed the flow chart in the factory service manual and the conclusion is faulty MAF, Any idea if there is a way to test the actual sensor itself instead of the items connected to it?

 

Well I just wanted to say thank you for all the help guys. Turns out the "driver module" for the check engine light was bad. It was probably on the whole time I was frying my components one at a time. Once I get it back and running I will try to find a local tuner in upstate new york. Thanks again.