Practical Standalone Tuning: Step 4 : Base Ignition Timing/Fuel Pressure

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Step 4 : Base Ignition Timing/Fuel Pressure

07.43

00:00	The next step of our process is to set and check our base fuel pressure as well as our base ignition timing and this does need to be done essentially in 2 steps because initially when we haven't got the engine running, we're not going to be getting really really clean signal from the distributor in terms of the ignition advance angle, it's going to be moving around a little bit so if we're starting from scratch, particularly installing a new distributor or the Hyperspark like we have, then we're just going to need to get it timed, at least in the ballpark and then once we've got the engine actually idling which is our next step, then we'll be able to come back and reconfirm our base ignition timing.
00:37	Same goes with the fuel pump though, we can check the fuel pressure when we just key on, however the battery voltage when we do this is going to be lower than what we're actually going to see with the engine running which should be around 14 volts, we might only see 11 to 12 volts at key on, so the fuel pump won't actually be operating at its normal operating pressure, might be a little bit lower when we just key on.
01:00	Now, let's start with our fuel pressure because this is nice and easy.
01:03	We already know from our initial configuration that the Sniper 2 is set up to expect 60 psi fuel pressure and in our case we've actually bought the optional fuel kit.
01:14	It should therefore be reasonably safe to assume that the fuel pressure regulator should be set to our target of 60 but we always want to check this rather than just making assumptions.
01:25	So, to do this we want to hook up a fuel pressure gauge to our fuel system and we want to just key on and make sure that we're getting just on 60 psi, in our case we're about 1 psi low but again with the engine actually not running at this stage, I'm not going to be too concerned about this, we can come back and reconfirm our fuel pressure once we've actually got the engine up and running.
01:47	The base ignition timing, a little bit more complicated as I've mentioned and really it's going to come down to what sort of distributor you're running.
01:56	If you are running a factory distributor with a vacuum advance, then the method of setting up the ignition time or base ignition timing is to remove that vacuum advance and we want to loosen the hold down for the distributor which is a 916th headed bolt and that's going to allow us to actually rotate the distributor to set our base timing.
02:17	Typically we're going to be aiming for a base timing at idle with this sort of system of around about 8-10°, probably 8° to be a little bit on the conservative side but again at this stage we don't have the engine up and running so we just want to make sure that we're getting some timing that's at least in that ballpark while we're cranking the engine.
02:38	Where we've got a little bit more control of course with the hyperspark, now we've got electronically controlled ignition, we've got a few more setup steps to go with this.
02:47	First of all we need to actually physically install the distributor into the engine which I'm not going to cover with insight of this video but again we get to the point where we are setting our base timing.
02:57	We've got no vacuum advance with the hyperspark and it's important or worth mentioning here that if you've got a vacuum hose for a mechanical distributor with vacuum advance, this would need to be blanked.
03:10	So, again we want to loosen our hold down bolt there so that we can actually rotate the distributor.
03:15	This is a two person job, what we want to do is have someone crank the engine so we can actually visually check the timing with our timing light but before we get there, let's just jump back into our software and have a look at a couple of the setups for this.
03:30	So, let's start with our 3.5 inch LCD screen and what we want to do here is go to our ignition setup and we've already touched on these settings previously in our configuration but now we're going to get a little bit more involved.
03:43	So, we have our reference angle here and simply from the hyperspark instruction manual, we know that we actually want to set this to 57.5 so I'll try and get a little bit closer.
03:53	OK we've got that set and we can save that.
03:57	Next, up we've got our inductive delay and the idea behind this parameter is to account for the delay in the ignition system.
04:03	Essentially if we're not accounting for this and we set our timing to be affixed, let's say 10° everywhere, irrespective of RPM and load, what we'll likely find is that at idle we may have 10° but we would actually see a little bit of drift, maybe a degree or two of drift at 4000 or 5000 RPM.
04:21	So, this delay setting can be adjusted so that we don't see that drift.
04:26	Again, we can't set this until we've actually got the engine running and we can test that.
04:30	But from the manual we know that Holley recommends starting with an inductive delay of 100 microseconds so we'll try and get ourselves about there.
04:39	Tap that up until we are exactly on 100 and we'll save that.
04:43	So, that should have us pretty close to the ballpark.
04:47	Now, I've looked at this on the 3.5 inch LCD screen, just for the sake of completeness, if we head over to our laptop tuning software you can see that we've got those two parameters here and again we're just going to set those, not that I am live with the ECU at the moment but we'll set these to 57.5 and 100 microseconds.
05:06	That's as easy as it is to get ourselves set up with the laptop software.
05:10	So, now we're ready to actually check our base timing, our static timing and we're going to do this in two ways, as I've mentioned we're going to check it while we are cranking and then later on once we've got the engine up and running and idling comfortably we can come back and do a better job of fine tuning that.
05:27	So, this is a two person job, we're going to have one person cranking the engine so that we can look at the harmonic balancer with our timing light.
05:34	Of course, we need to know what we're actually looking for in terms of timing.
05:38	And if we come back into our little LCD screen and we go into our tuning and basic and then spark, we can see we have our cranking, ignition timing and we know that that's set to 15° so during cranking that's what the ECU is going to be asking for or providing and we're just going to need to rotate that distributor until we're getting pretty close to 15°, again no point getting too fussy here because the timing will move around a little bit at idle.
06:06	Once we've actually got the engine up and running, after we've got our idle dialed in, then we can come back and be a little bit more fussy about this and again if we jump back into our hand controller here, if we go to our tuning and then system and then static timing, you can see that we can set our timing wherever we want and irrespective of engine RPM and load, this is the timing that will be delivered to the hyperspark.
06:33	So, what we want to do is choose a timing here that the engine's going to run nicely at.
06:38	If we're trying to time in the static timing at maybe 1°, it's just going to be too retarded, the engine's not going to run very well.
06:45	So, in this case 15° is probably a pretty good middle of the road area to get our timing dialed in.
06:51	We'll set that by clicking the set button and that has now set the timing fixed at 15°.
06:59	What we want to do now is just leave the engine idling and adjust our distributor until we've got exactly 15°, should be nice and stable at this point.
07:07	Once we've got that done, we can then go and tighten up our 916th hold down bolt and the distributor timing will be set.
07:16	We can then come back to our LCD screen and we can clear our base timing and close that down.
07:23	So, at this point in our process we know that we've got our ignition timing where it needs to be, we know that we've got our fuel pressure where that needs to be and we should have the confidence that when it comes time to start the engine for the first time, we should be in pretty good shape to get our engine up and running so we can move on with the next step of our process.