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Timing light - dumber is better.

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:46 am
by Peter Florance
I know all of you know not to use adjustable or smart timing light on wasted spark applications, but how about dizzy cars?

Last Saturday I was using customer's MAC Tools timing light on distributor setup and got a lot of timing scatter at 3000 rpm.
Lately I've started bringing my dumb Craftsman timing light ($20.00 on ebay - no knob) regardless of what the car owner says he has, and I tried it on the car. Rock steady timing with no changes to setup.

Moral of story: Find a light that works and trust no adjustable light unless you are sure it really works. Keep a dumb light as a reference and sanity check.

I've had bad results with SnapOn and MAC 'smart' timing lights when used with MegaSquirt.

Re: Timing light - dumber is better.

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 10:25 am
by Heribert
Agree, compeletely.
And to add, I have had quite a lot of problems to get the clamp-on sensors to work on EDIS wasted spark and on
other wasted spark coils. Many , but not all, clamp on timing lights work on only one of the plug leads in each pair.
Not a real problem, once you know. But until then, confusing reigns! :?
To reduce this nuisance factor I always use an old, dumb, direct connection timing light when strobing wasted spark set ups .
If you have one, hold on to it! :yeah!:

Best regards

Heribert

Re: Timing light - dumber is better.

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 6:45 pm
by Random Hero
We too have been having a problem getting two different dial-back timing lights to work with our EDIS 6 setup. Gets no signal at all clamped on the #1 plug wire. Looks like I need to get myself a "dumber" timing light, lol.

Re: Timing light - dumber is better.

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:31 am
by DonTZ125
Hi, Peter.

Are you using the digital timing light in 2-stroke or 4-stroke mode?

Re: Timing light - dumber is better.

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 4:55 am
by Peter Florance
DonTZ125 wrote:Hi, Peter.

Are you using the digital timing light in 2-stroke or 4-stroke mode?
I don't recall if it had a choice. This last one was a distributor based car so I didn't think I had to use 2 stoke mode.