TiburonJay

I was wondering what you guys thought about the advancement of timing in high boost applications. Do you feel its needed to squeeze out some extra hp or is it always a safe bet to stay at OEM specs regardless of the amount of boost you have?

Whatnot

The variables are so broad, you can't really answer that with a blanket statement of yes or no. Did you use a higher octane than OEM? If you have an OEM car and you just turned the boost up, I would actually be inclined ot retard the timing a bit as you are pumping in more heat. But you you have a larger IC or some other cooling mods, you could get away with keeping it the same or advancing it a bit. But if you have a larger more efficient turbo, than you could absolutly advance it a bit. Though advancing timing is always kind of risky without and EGT gauge. Though on many F/I cars, I would always turn up the boost to get much more safe power than I would try to advance timing. You can sometimes rely on knock sensor and IAT to guestimate things, but you can also blow your engine up that way. And are you increasing rpm? Then you will have to obiouvsly advance timing or make your own timing that since it didn't exsist on the map, but add timing to you lower rpms had. It also depends on teh factory tune. I highly doubt they had the timing at MBT, but it is possible they did and advancing wouldn't add any power.

Random

in high boost applications it's more normal to RETARD the ignition timing, not advance it.

Yes, you usually can get more HP by advancing the timing, but @ the risk of reliability. It's up to you as to how much is worth it.

If you run higher octane fuel, use Methanol Injection, better intercooler, yada etc..etc.. you can CONSIDER it. But I would never advise it for a HOME tuner unless you're making changes in very small increments and a EGT probe and guage (preferably one for each exhaust port), and a way to ACTIVELY monitor knock, I wouldn't do it personally. The risk/reward ratio just isn't there if you don't know what you're doing.



Also, keep in mind, if you tune(and advance timing) in mlps on a nice fall day (say 50 degrees), that tune is going to probably cause detonation/knock in Mid July when it's 99 with 99% humidity and you flying down 35W at a buck-twenty. If you're lucky..the ECU will detect the knock before anything REALLY BAD happens, and grab back about 40 Degree's of ignition timing. Now you're worse off than before you advanced it 10 degrees.



Tune for worst case conditions...and in small increments, and don't be afraid to back off. Boasting of your +15 Degrees of ignition timing that got you another 30WHP and moar bragging rights is going to be a really small consolation when you've got your motor in 9000 different pieces spread around the freeway.

03tibe85

^^ I agree with Random. Unless you do your homework and REALLY know what your doing NEVER advance your ignition timing especially if you have a stock block with stock compression ratio. Just take a second and think about it. Your turbocharging a car that came stock normally aspirated. Generally Normally Aspirated engines run more timing from th factory compared with a factory turbocharged engine. Do you really want to increase timing even more? With that said substantial gains can be had from increasing the timing beyond factory specs but you better make sure you have the engine and fuel mods to support it. One great way is to run E85 instead of premium. On my heavily modded Tiburon I gained upwards of 40whp from running E85 and advancing timing 4 degrees on the top end.

Regit

^^ Agreed, The more horsepower I make, the safer I feel when I pull a lil timing,