Cwaters

so I got a t iming light for Christmas (it was on the list) and finally got an alternator in my car so I could do the test.
Q: I see only a whitestripe on the pulleys and it's almost a quarter turn to the driver's side of the pin. For clarification, the pin is about 12-o'clock, next to the water pump pulley and the white stripes appear between 2&3 o'clock. This is retarded, right? (no pun intended, really.)
Q2: Why would I get this result? Testing problem? The idle was a bit fast so I adjusted it and got the same result. I'm on the right plug lead, using a cheap Craftsman light.
Q3: Where's the other stripe?
Q4: Would the motor run being that retarded?
Q5: Before I go advancing the timing to the point of killing my motor, should I check anything?
Q6: How am I supposed to know how much a degree is?

Thanks,
Cory

tesla042

just making sure... you hooked the light up to the #1 *LEADING* wire, as close to the coil as possible, right?

-Tesla

Cwaters

Hooked up to the wire right next to the battery.

Cory

Cwaters

I got a little impatiant and tried to adjust the CAS. The idle slowed and quickened in either direction but the stripe never got close to the pin. I'm wondering what the heck....

Cory

HAILERS

Simply put, it would seem that your cas has been installed a little bit wrong, possibly. Try installing the cas per this thread https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...threadid=29978 and C. LUDWIG is the post you want to read. Just before that you need to take a good look at your front pulley. The two marks are approx 9/16 apart. When you find one, look 9/16 on either side and you should find the other. Mark both with something like WhiteOut, paint whatever. If the cas was installed a tooth off, you would get the results that you are getting....not being able to set the timing. Make sense???? Read C Ludwig, its one of the best written methods of getting spot on timing when installing the cas.

Cwaters

I performed the adjustment acording to Ludwig and got the white stripe to line up with the peg and now the motor runs really rough.
If that stripe (the only marking on the pulley that I can find) is wrong, what can I do to get the mtor timed right?????

HELP!!!

Cory
shouldn't have messed with it!

HAILERS

Strange. But did you do as suggested? And find the one mark and then with great care look about 9/16 on either side of that mark?? Should have found the remnants of the other line. Right now we don't know if that is a LEAD or TRAIL timing mark. What is the result when you put your lite on the number one trailing plug lead??? Does the lite show the white line, now, before or after the fixed marker on the front housing? I think that would give us a clue, a good clue, as to whether the white line is the trail or the lead marker. If the white line is truly the lead marker, then when you have the timing lite on the trail plug number one, the white line should be showing up about 9/16 to the right of the fixed pointer(looking from front towards rear on the engine). Whata you think about trying that???????

Cwaters

This white line was painted on. It's NOT factory. I'm thinking somone took the pulley off once and painted the line---then took the pulley off again and didn't linte it up right. There's no trace I can see of the factory lines. I'm thinking that somebody might have painted the pulley at some point....

Anyway, the white mark is like 1/4 turn away from running well. I put it back to about where it was and it's running well again. I hope. Thing is- there's no way to know how far retarded or advanced it is!

Cory

HAILERS

Yeah. Someone screwed the pooch on the pulley. Is it possible that the real lines are 180 degrees around the flywheel?? No you said you looked. There is a method for finding the top dead center. Its on this site http://www.teamfc3s.org/info/articles/demystifying.html I have never done this myself. But, Keith, has done it I believe. You might pm him and ask for advise from him or any other person who wants to tell us how. I think it will always bother you until you know for sure if the timing is spot on.

Cwaters

Thanks for that informative link Hailers!
Inow I know how to find TDC for leading and trailing BUT....how to determine the size of a degree....? If you know where TDC is and you know the leading plugs fire at 5 degrees ATDC and the trailing plugs fire at 20 degrees ATDC, the only thing left to know is What's a degree?

Cory

HAILERS

C WATERS........You got me. If I were you, I'd pm Keith, who is really Irv. I remember reading a post by Irv mentioning how to find tdc, and I did play with a spare engine of mine for a while, but my haid started hurting too much so I did the sensible thing and just gave up. You should go to the Search engine and put in Keith, and see if you can find that post or pm him. He is a reasonable individual and posts often. Darn. Now I'm going to have to spend the rest of the day figureing out how to do that. Cheeez. It would be easy for me since I have a pulley with the two marks. I could measure b/t the two and figure how far 5 or 10 or 20 degrees is , but you don't have that advantage. I do remember in one of my above post saying that the distance b/t the two marks on my engine is 9/16. So that equals 15 degrees. So a third of that equals the five degrees. So that should get you in the ball park. One third of 9/16 should be the 5 degrees and then measure 9/16 behind that for the 20 degree mark. Ought to be close enough. Also must be another way, but I don't think its required.