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Thread: Old School racing timing table

  1. #1
    Tuner in Training gup72's Avatar
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    Old School racing timing table

    I have a question. I am curious if this will work and work well. Some qualifying facts before I begin. This is for a straight up race tune in a jeep with an LQ4 for a 300ft dirt drag. Line up, floor it for 300 ft through 3 gears, idle to the pits. Could a fella set the timing table up to be just like a curved mechanical distributor and it work? I have had some big power motors that were 20 degrees initial and 36 total all in by 3500rpm and drove fantastic on the street and strip. I would set it up 18 degrees to 1000 rpm, smooth it to 27 degrees at 3600. Maybe not the best for mileage but maybe a sure fire way to get the timing you want with no BS. Leave all the burst knock there for protection of course! Anyone tried this?

  2. #2
    Senior Tuner
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    Instead of asking, why not just try it. Much of learning how to tune is just trying things and seeing what the results are. Especially for a situation you described that is a very specialized kind of racing.

  3. #3
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    I wouldn't imagine it would hurt anything, other than the advantage of having the availability of adjustment during transition.

    What I mean is, mechanical distributors only had two settings because of the complexity that would be required to have more. You had to adjust springs and advance weights to tailor when you wanted it to advance... They weren't set up that way because it was better though. I personally believe that the engine would run best at a specific amount of timing at a specific rpm. Maintaining that curve would still give you your best results, especially if you are trying to squeeze every last bit of Horsepower and torque out of the motor.

    Your only real advantage would be ease of setup.

    Now personally with your needs, I would remove as many modifiers out as possible and just set the best timing "curve" throughout the rpm range under full load. I also would pull burst knock out and just leave Knock retard, but that is just my preference...

    That should give you a happy medium, predictable results and easier setup while still giving you maximum timing

  4. #4
    Tuner in Training gup72's Avatar
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    I tried it and it worked nice. Got into 3 degrees of knock retard after 2-3 shift for a short period. Backed those cells down and it works nice....for a 4low wide open pull. On the road it is OK, but not ideal especially during transition.