Hey all,

I was wondering, IF you can change the ignition timing on this car, can you get more HP?

all comments welcome!

 

You can advance ignition timing to get more HP. However there are a couple of things to consider

How are you going to change timing? AEM EMS, Greddy Emanage?
Where are you going to get it tuned so that you can ensure that the timing change is not going to be determental to your car which leads into the next statement.
If you advance timing to far, you will create detonation in the motor due to the advanced spark even if you are not FI.
1 degree advancement in NA is not going to net you much more power for the cost of adding the electonics for doing so. Advancement of more degrees of timing will put you so what closer to the limit of creating more detonation in the motor depending on the amount of timing you advance. Check out www.howstuffworks.com to see how ignition timing work before you consider anything first.

 

what about fuel timing?

 

You should be more worried about what color my underpants are than adjusting your air/fuel mixture (not timing) and spark advance.

 

Timing usually provides more torque than HP - today's cars are so well tuned in that this really is 1980's and earlier hop up trick. Those cars usually had less advance in the lower gears to diminish emissions, so adding, say, 4 deg BTDC off idle and up to a few thousand RPM usually resulted in more smack down low. Better gas mileage too. Ah, youth...

 

So is it possible to adjust the timing for a little more torque and how much torque are we talking about? Can I do this w/o a chip? Thus staying stock legal for SCCA Solo 2 stock class?

Warren

 

But seriously... what color are alexf20c's underpants?

And when did he start wearing underpants, anyway?

And how can I get in those underpants in his avatar?

 

On an otherwise street-tuned/part auto-x car like mine, I had to deal with these topics until I decided on my solution.

Ignition can be improved on using an AEM EMS (must be tuned by an experienced tuner), or a complete replacement ECU from Mugen which allows the motor to keep more of the spark advance and minimize the factors which pull ignition timing away. The Mugen ECU is also tuned well for AF ratios, no additional tuning necessary unless you have serious airflow improvements. It's never a bad idea to take your car to a shop and have the AF ratios checked via wideband O2.