Continuing ignition timing debate from the 416 thread.

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And we also have to remember with Morris we’re watching a video made for entertainment purpose. We don’t see what goes on when the camera is off. He’s not building a curve because when the engine is on the dyno he’s not concerned with what it’s doing down low and he isn’t “drivability tuning”. He’s after the number on the screen that makes people say wow. And any monkey can ignore peak torque, make it soft there so it doesn’t hurt itself then ramp the tune in from say 5000 to 8500 and look like a hero. I’m not bashing Steve Morris, I actually really like the guy and think he’s very good at what he does, but he ain’t doing anything revolutionary on the dyno. He is however doing it with very nice hardware that he creates and designed in house, on his own machines so props there.
 
For drag and drive, those guys put a cruise tune in. I am sure drastically different than race tune
You’d be surprised. Once they’re dialed in pretty well on the bottom of the graphs the drive tune up can be, and is a lot of the time, the race tune up. One and the same. You just focus on different areas of the map.
 
You’d be surprised. Once they’re dialed in pretty well on the bottom of the graphs the drive tune up can be, and is a lot of the time, the race tune up. One and the same. You just focus on different areas of the map.
Maybe it has changed some, but i do remember drive tunes being put in, blower belts coming off and throttle bodies added in place of blow off plates, big screw blowers being changed, etc. Bailey had an ice cream cruise in his 250mph D&D car and I think that was a very mild tune, pump gas. Etc.
 
Maybe it has changed some, but i do remember drive tunes being put in, blower belts coming off and throttle bodies added in place of blow off plates, big screw blowers being changed, etc. Bailey had an ice cream cruise in his 250mph D&D car and I think that was a very mild tune, pump gas. Etc.
Oh the tune definitely changes for sure but the race tune is usually a copy and paste of the drive tune and modified from say 5000 up. The dudes that pull burst panels and put throttle bodies under the blower and pull the belts off and stuff like that (Richie Crampton I’m talking to you) are a different breed.
 
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Do you know what machine I have? It doesn’t trigger like a Sun does. The machine gets triggered from the SOURCE, so on points or ANY system that acts like points like a Unilite the machine gets triggered by the “points” or in the case of the Unilite it triggers off the green wire, which is just like triggering points.

So the machine sees exactly what the trigger is doing whether the box is hooked up or not. I can actually test most ignition boxes with just the machine and nothing else. You can’t do that with a Sun or any other machine Ive ever seen, with the exception of those King brand machines and Ive only seen a few pictures of those.

So when you see the timing going backwards in the video thats exactly what it’s doing and it’s the box doing it.
Is this the wire (arrow pointing to circle) that you hooked your distributor machine to?

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How does it trigger on a msd 2 wire?

The same way. I was going to do a quick video on it but I’m going to pass on it.

I can tell by your responses you are simply being obtuse.

Time an engine any way you want.
 
I think some of what Steve does in the videos is for shock value HP numbers. Kill some for the goal of singular peak. For drag and drive, those guys put a cruise tune in. I am sure drastically different than race tune

I am loving this whole thread and discussions. Thank you all

I wish that were true.

I spent almost a bit over 6 hours in the car yesterday and for three of them I was on a phone call with a guy who knows.

Im not naming names but he knows.

It’s what Steve does. He’s not doing it for clicks. It’s how he tuned every engine.

That’s not a knock on Steve because what I know of him is from YouTube. I’ve never tried to call him because just like this thread, you’ll never convince some people these engines will run better with the CORRECT curve.

I also pointed it out because Steve gets a ton of views so people watch it.

When he does a whole show about how compression ratio and boost doesn’t affect timing (and I know of one guy who posted on his page some questions that never got answered and no, it wasn’t me) complete with his hand drawings on a white board then that massive error needs to be called out.

He’s not God.

I asked a simple question on this thread and it went unanswered. It’s simple physics and it’s not a trick or gotcha question because I know some live that ****.

The question is how can an engine (with the RARE exception of some highly sophisticated, highly developed engines) want the same timing at peak torque as it does at peak power?

Or, how does a higher VE want the same (or more timing as it relates to a higher VE) than it does at lower VE’s.

That’s not a trick question. The answer is it can’t. Were the OEM’s wholly ignorant back in the day when the added vacuum advance to the distributor to clean up low load, high manifold vacuum driving situations?

They still do it today, it’s just done electronically. We talked about that yesterday on the phone. The OE’s spend tens of millions of dollars establishing timing and fuel maps to this day because the physics have not changed.

Engine families all have essentially the same timing requirements. I say essentially because there are reasons outside of pure power they deal with so taking the small block mopar as an example the timing strategy for a 318 2V won’t be the same as a 340 4v engine.

And they have to deal with emissions as well. But the engine families all have similar timing needs depending on application.

Certainly no one here would argue (one would think) that a common era, say from just the life span of the 340 from 68-74 that the same era SBC would require the same timing strategy as the small block mopar. They do not. But the same thing happens with those platforms. The timing gets locked out and those engines suffer just the same.

It basic crap we should have learned in high school and the smart kids did. You can’t alter the physics of it and claim there is no measurable difference in the end result.

Even the testing protocols to establish the timing strategy is disputed.

I didn’t come up with it. I was told I was doing it wrong. So rather than argue with three different people who are experts on the subject, I did the testing for myself.

And the results were and are exactly what they told they would be.

If you don’t test for it then you have no idea (not YOU specifically but you in the general sense of the word) what you are talking about.
 
Msd makes a tester for this. 89981

You posted part of a post. I have no idea WTF I even was taking about and I’m not going back and looking for it.

That’s you trying to gotcha the topic.

I just looked at the instructions for it and other that telling you what the curve is you have what’s your point?

And if you look closely it appears to use a similar wiring protocol to what my distributor machine does.

Do YOU have an MSD 89981? If not, why.

Never mind. I don’t care about your answer.
 
To me it seems every builder has systems theories practises that work for them but not necessarily be the best but it's their way, You look at engines like Pro Stock, NASCAR, Indy etc… they have teams that everyone specialize in one aspect of that engine, they all probably have a decent understanding of what each other does but only a master of one part and when you listen to them, they say they're always learning more.

So, just cause someone has a business doesn’t mean everything they do is 100% right or correct or otherwise there would be no progress.

My estranged uncle races top alcohol and cnc’s his own blocks etc.. and I imagine that he has learnt quite a bit along the way but bet that he mostly can do what he does cause he’s got money to do so.
 
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And if you look closely it appears to use a similar wiring protocol to what my distributor machine does.
In the post you mentioned that your distributor Machine has a signal generator so you can test modules with out a distributor and that you didn't know of any other distributor machine that could do that. Neither do I. But if someone was interested in adding one to their machine or if the generator on their machine should fail, Msd makes one that is stand alone and seems reasonably priced in my opinion. So I posted the part #. I thought it was useful information. I ordered one yesterday and when it gets here I will let you know what it's like. I'm happy to see you took time to look at the link and share your thoughts.
 
You posted part of a post. I have no idea WTF I even was taking about and I’m not going back and looking for it.
You can click on the link in the upper left corner where it says " 92b said" with a little arrow and it will take you directly to the post where the partial quote came from.
 
In the post you mentioned that your distributor Machine has a signal generator so you can test modules with out a distributor and that you didn't know of any other distributor machine that could do that. Neither do I. But if someone was interested in adding one to their machine or if the generator on their machine should fail, Msd makes one that is stand alone and seems reasonably priced in my opinion. So I posted the part #. I thought it was useful information. I ordered one yesterday and when it gets here I will let you know what it's like. I'm happy to see you took time to look at the link and share your thoughts.

I’m not sure my machine has a signal generator, which is why I didn’t mention it.

I’m not 100% sure exactly how it works but I know the electronics in it (as old school as they may be) requires a way to change what the machine does.

It does that with aluminum “cards” that are a bit bigger than a post card. Without those, the machine is useless unless you have those cards.

When I got the machine it had one card. And no instructions. So I had to do a ton of research to find someone with the machine and who had all these cards, and who would trust me enough to loan me the cards so I could get them made.

I found a guy in Minnesota with all the cards but he didn’t have the instructions. I found a guy who was (and may still be) writing for car magazines with the instructions and he was missing a card.

So I had an extra card made for him and he sent me a scan of the instructions.

In the end we all have a full set of cards and instructions.

The other thing is this machine will rpm to almost 12k. I don’t know of another machine that does that except maybe the King machine but I’ve only seen pictures of that. It certainly looked capable of that and more.
 
The same way. I was going to do a quick video on it but I’m going to pass on it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see that. I'm curious to see your machine and I'm sure others here would also like to see it.
 
What wire did you hook it to? Is that the same ignition box you were using? Sounds like a nice machine you have. What model is your machine?

I have a wire that allows me to hook the machine to the green wire by itself.

I took the green (trigger) wire and put a butt connector in it so that when it’s hooked to the box I have a clean, easy place to connect to.

When I first was doing it with boxes that have that style of connection I had a little stud I screwed in there. It was long enough that I could use a nut to lock it down and then hook the wires to it. The stud was long enough I could hook the wire from the machine to that stud.

It’s also where the tach trigger is, for the Autometer tach and the calibrated tach on the machine.

For whatever reason, there was some kind of EMI or RF noise when connecting the machine line that that made it impossible to test.

Neither tach was right. And on some boxes it would be close at low rpm and as the rpm went up it would go chaotic. On other boxes it wouldn’t trigger either tach and the arrows on the degree wheel stop at certain rpm and then come back on.

I don’t know why hooking it directly to the box was causing issues but putting the trigger wire for the machine in the wire and not to the box fixed all that.

Oh yeah, I forgot what box it was but it was a Mallory digital 6 box I was testing and above 7k all the arrows would blink together. All of them off and on. That was crazy because that box didn’t connect like the 7 boxes do. I don’t remember that anyway.
 

And we also have to remember with Morris we’re watching a video made for entertainment purpose. We don’t see what goes on when the camera is off. He’s not building a curve because when the engine is on the dyno he’s not concerned with what it’s doing down low and he isn’t “drivability tuning”. He’s after the number on the screen that makes people say wow. And any monkey can ignore peak torque, make it soft there so it doesn’t hurt itself then ramp the tune in from say 5000 to 8500 and look like a hero. I’m not bashing Steve Morris, I actually really like the guy and think he’s very good at what he does, but he ain’t doing anything revolutionary on the dyno. He is however doing it with very nice hardware that he creates and designed in house, on his own machines so props there.


I agree. My problem is guys watch it and think it’s gospel and it’s not.

I know they turn the boost down and IIRC run them on pump gas for the drag and drive stuff.

I’m not sure if they have a different tune for that but I’m pretty sure they do, so that’s how they do the drive part.

I remember one episode he did where pump gas made more power on a 13:1 deal but it seems to me he took 4 degrees of timing out and changed fuel. That skews the results for sure.

He should have just changed the timing. Or maybe he did just drop the timing on PG and then switched to race gas. I don’t remember now but it seems to me he did the timing and it didn’t loose any power. I would have kept dropping the timing a couple of degrees at at time until it lost power.

Then that would be MBT for THAT curve. And that doesn’t mean that that curve was correct. In fact, I’m taking out of my hat. I think it was locked out and he took timing out and it didn’t loose power.

Crap. Now I need to see if I can find that one and watch it again.

I’m not bashing the guy. I’m saying I absolutely disagree with how he does timing on engines he tunes engines on the dyno.

I also vehemently disagree with his video that says boost and compression ratio do not affect timing.

That’s just wrong and crazy.
 
I also vehemently disagree with his video that says boost and compression ratio do not affect timing.
What I think is definitely true, is most people with boosted stuff don’t test em NA so they rarely have any idea the true VE of the combination or where peaks occur. So to make a statement that 30 degrees is too much for xx boost or xx compression is inherently false because you have no comparator. If an engine wants 30 degrees on 10 psi but you didn’t run it NA to see that it wanted 42 degrees NA then the 30 means nothing. It’s just a number. I’ve never, ever seen an engine take the same timing on boost that it did NA. That tells me that cylinder pressure absolutely has an effect on timing requirements. I haven’t experienced everything but what I have experienced tells me that true.
 
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These are the cards. Only the number 4 card doesn’t change the rotation because it just checks the ignition module.

To change the direction of rotation you flip the card over and stick it back in.

I forgot the guy I got the machine from had two number 1 cards. That was all he had. Why he had two of the same card I don’t know. Neither did he.

He couldn’t make it work even with points so that’s why he sold it.

After the deal was done, I paid 300 for the machine, 250 to ship it and 150 to crate it.

I was good with that. The funny thing is was I asked him where it came from and what he paid for it.

He didn’t want to say because he thought I would think he was ripping me off. I told him that crap doesn’t matter to me.

He bought it for 70 bucks at a yard sale a block from his house. I thought that was hilarious.

And I’d pay that all over again and then some if I could find another one.

It was too bad it didn’t figure out how to use it. In fact he called me a year later or so and asked if it worked so I sent him a couple of videos and told him what he was doing wrong.

He laughed and said well ****! I didn’t rip you off then. I was feeling bad because I thought I screwed you. We both laughed at that.
 
What I think is definitely true, is most people with boosted stuff don’t test em NA so they rarely have any idea the true VE of the combination or where peaks occur. So to make a statement that 30 degrees is too much for xx boost or xx compression is inherently false because you have no comparator. If an engine wants 30 degrees on 10 psi but you didn’t run it NA to see that it wanted 42 degrees NA then the 30 means nothing. It’s just a number. I’ve never, ever seen an engine take the same timing on boost that it did NA. That tells me that cylinder pressure absolutely has an effect on timing requirements. I haven’t experienced everything but what I have experienced tells me that true.

Yup.

I’m 100% for sure as are you that boost and compression ratio affect timing.

During one of my mentors (and he was my boss) AA/GS days we would change compression and the timing changed.

When the new AA/GS “legal” blowers came out we didn’t see an increase in boost but we saw a significant decrease in IAT and that allowed more timing.

There are many factors that affect not only total timing, but initial timing and the shape of the curve it’s impossible to say what the numbers should be.

What I am sure of is most engines want a curve and from my testing the curve ends up being very close to what Jenkins published in 1975.

So when I see a fairly fast chamber with tight quench (speeds up the burn rate so timing goes down) and the timing is “all in” at or below peak torque I’m 99.95% certain that there is more power left in it. And I consider even a 10/10 average gain significant because not a part was changed.

That means the engine is happier and a happy engine requires less maintenance and has a longer TBO.

I don’t know how that is not significant either but it is to me.
 
Here is a link to the video of Morris giving his theory on ignition timing. It’s a little over a year old. I know that people smarter than me commented on this video and he didn’t respond.

If you are a tuner, watch this video and tell me how you can agree with his theory? If a theory is wrong and you apply the theory everything you apply the theory to will be wrong.

This is not bashing on Morris. It’s showing his theory on ignition timing. It’s HIS theory. He posted it so it’s open to peer review. That’s what this is. A peer review.

So watch the video and tell me how you can agree with his theory? If you agree with his theory, please explain it.

And I’m not talking about the numbers he gives as starting points for timing. I don’t care about that. Im talking about HIS theory on ignition timing and how that affects his tuning because it does.

 
So, realistically how much power are we talking about for the investment? 1% 2% ?

I'm not saying it's not worth it but it definitely feels like "the little things" chasing a fully optimized timing curve.

I do understand the idea behind achieving a steady state before a result is realized, but how does that translate to real world, where steady state is purely academic?

I do have some experience dyno testing. Back in the day I was on a formula SAE student team, and we flogged the hell out of a cbr600 engine, "optimizing" all these things. That engine would sit pinned at 10,000 rpm while we tinkered with timing and AF.

You know what? We ended up having to make massive changes to the map to make the thing drivable. It didn't make as much power in the dyno, but it sure was easier to drive.

Im not arguing against the general theme here. It is interesting. But I can't help thinking it's all a bit academic.

Don't all the serious race teams tune based on load profiles that mimic specific tracks?
 
So, realistically how much power are we talking about for the investment? 1% 2% ?

I'm not saying it's not worth it but it definitely feels like "the little things" chasing a fully optimized timing curve.

I do understand the idea behind achieving a steady state before a result is realized, but how does that translate to real world, where steady state is purely academic?

I do have some experience dyno testing. Back in the day I was on a formula SAE student team, and we flogged the hell out of a cbr600 engine, "optimizing" all these things. That engine would sit pinned at 10,000 rpm while we tinkered with timing and AF.

You know what? We ended up having to make massive changes to the map to make the thing drivable. It didn't make as much power in the dyno, but it sure was easier to drive.

Im not arguing against the general theme here. It is interesting. But I can't help thinking it's all a bit academic.

Don't all the serious race teams tune based on load profiles that mimic specific tracks?


If I’m following what your saying, you only did steady state testing at 10k and nowhere else?

If so, that would explain why the engine suffered drivability issues.

That’s why I use multiple rpm to test.

The reason why I say you can’t do that with a sweep test is how do you decide where to put the timing at what rpm?

You have no reference.

So you do steady state testing at multiple rpm and then sweep test it to verify the curve.

I make multiple sweep tests at different locked out timing numbers before I even start my steady state testing.

That gives me a very basic idea of what both ends of the curve should look like. And that’s not etched in stone.

It can change some.
 
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