Timing Lights

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

Its been brought to my attention that many timing lights are not accurate at high RPM. I do not know, but I would assume this would mostly involve the ones that allow you to set a certain advance on them. My assumption would be that a light that had very little work or processing to do would be the most accurate.

I have read the MSD Ignition 8992 is one of the most accurate. I think the $160 is quite steep, but if it is the best value for money I could go with that.

Does anyone have any other feedback? I would prefer to see something with a little more weight to it than, I use XX timing gun my whole life and it works great. That's not that useful. I'd like to hear I use this gun because I found at 6000 RPM it was the only one that matched what I expected and other known good guns.

I want to resync my AEM and don't want to build error into my timing map.

[KeithMac]

Interested in this also, I saw my timing retard on the crank pulley as rpm increased (fixed at 5dbtdc) but now think it's down to the timing light.

Thing is how do you prove the light is working properly at high rpms?, how do you test it?.

[mdcrose]

I think you'll need an oscilloscope, look at the spark trigger on one channel and open the lamp and probe the bulb output pulse on the second channel. You could also test this off the car with a function generator.

[DocWalt]

Set the timing sync with whatever light you normally use then tune it for max power and it doesn't really matter what the number in the ECU says (though obviously it's ideal for it to be right for comparison purposes) Then check timing with a few other lights for comparison sake?

FWIW I recently found that I was losing a ton of timing versus what it should have been using the same timing as everyone else with similar engines due to timing sync problem on my GTI. It now makes a bunch more power, runs smoother, etc.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

Found an interesting quote by madbill from here: http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=26922


"Maybe some EE can say different, but seems to me if you test several lights the one that shows the most advance must be the most accurate, since it's pretty tough to consistently flash the strobe before the spark occurs, but pretty easy to delay it... :-k"

Makes a lot of sense to me.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

Set the timing sync with whatever light you normally use then tune it for max power and it doesn't really matter what the number in the ECU says (though obviously it's ideal for it to be right for comparison purposes) Then check timing with a few other lights for comparison sake?

FWIW I recently found that I was losing a ton of timing versus what it should have been using the same timing as everyone else with similar engines due to timing sync problem on my GTI. It now makes a bunch more power, runs smoother, etc.

That sounds great and is true, but it would be nice tuning to know if you are starting at 17 degrees or really are doing 20.

It is along the same lines of you could tune a car by trial and error without having a basemap and without knowing what size injectors it had, but it wouldn't be easy.

[DocWalt]

That sounds great and is true, but it would be nice tuning to know if you are starting at 17 degrees or really are doing 20.

It is along the same lines of you could tune a car by trial and error without having a basemap and without knowing what size injectors it had, but it wouldn't be easy.

I'm not going to argue that, haha. Just saying that at the end of the day your timing light is yours and that's what matters.

[braincrater]

I don't have any in depth advice since that is the only good timing light I own but compared to the cheap ones it is great lol. You can buy it from advance auto and use coupon code TRT30 to get $50 off.... can't beat that

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

I don't have any in depth advice since that is the only good timing light I own but compared to the cheap ones it is great lol. You can buy it from advance auto and use coupon code TRT30 to get $50 off.... can't beat that

Thank you, I didn't consider ordering from them. With the coupon, tax, and free shipping it was $125 to my door. I guess we will see if it matches my old sunpro.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

Well, I received the MSD 8992 yesterday and it is a beast. Bright enough to burn your eyes right out and is really stable too. I don't think my old light caught every single ignition event, but this does. Rock solid at the balancer.

Good thing I checked my timing, it was 3-4 degrees advanced at idle and started advancing about a degree as you went up using the 129.6 mSec pickup comp delay. One large retard click and two smalls on the aem wizard brought the idle timing correct and setting the pickup comp delay to 100 kept the timing steady up to 5000 RPM.

5000 RPM seems like 10,000 under the hood working the throttle as you reach over and try to see the timing marks! Need an assistant to test a little higher at some point, but I think it is good.

I wonder if 100% of the drift is due to the aem being a universal platform or if there are stock cars running around with this same issue?