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Setting advance timing

Bob, I can't get your video to work for me.

Let's start with which engine, and with which ignition system you have.
EST or Mechanical advance?

What are your OEM ignition advance specs?

Are you wanting to set BASE advance ONLY.... or are you wanting to verify the progresseive and TA?

Is your balancer marked off up to approx 35 degrees or so?

Are you going to be using a standard strobe type timing light, or a digitally advancing type timing light?





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Using the "advance" lights, assuming the light is calibrated, the rpm is set and then the knob is turned to get the timing mark (crank) to ZERO on the timing tab...

The quick and dirty cal check is to set the rpm to idle, set the knob on the light to zero and read the initial timing off the tab. then move the knob up to that value...if the light is "in cal", the crank timing mark should be under ZERO on the tab.
 
Mark, so I did it this way. I set the light to zero and checked my base timing (6 degrees with idle at 670-680). Then turned the dial to 30, ran it up to 3,000 RPM's and held it there while rotating the distributor until the pointer read zero. Does that work?
 
IF you are looking for 30 degrees of total advance AND that occurs by 3000 rpm, then yes, you did well.

I usually check the advance curve and then make sure to check a point or two ABOVE the max advance to make sure max occurs when it is supposed to.
 
Bob, here's what your OEM curve may look like.
This is for the Volvo Penta engines, but it may be similar to Crusader....... check and verify.



Note that most of these Marine Ignition advance curve graphs do not show nor include BASE advance on the vertical scale.
So this one is showing the progressive advance only.
BASE must be added when doing the math.

Example: the dark graph line shows 22* @ 3.2k rpm. If you add a BASE of 8*, your total would be 30*, etc, etc.

Note how the curve tapers off and flattens out at/near 3.2k rpm.
If your advance continues some above this RPM, is not necessarily a deal breaker.

If you have total faith in your digitally advancing timing light, then use the method that Mark points out.
Once set, and if you want to check or verify, put the light in standard strobe mode, and check again.
However, your balancer or flywheel must be marked off for this method.


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