Check/Set Timing?
 

Seeing as all my previous timing experience has involved a distributor....

How does one check the timing on the ES Lancer? Also, without the distributor, I am wondering how timing adjustments are done.

I don't have (or have access to) any kind of manual, so no LOL-ing! :)

your car has a computer brain- it adjusts timing accordingly in daily driving. Timing adjusts can be done manually be removing the timing belt and moving the crank (timing belt is under the cover on the passenger's side of the engine). Timing can be checked with a light, so I'm told, by clamping to the leftmost plug wire. I usually just turn the crank a few times by hand to make sure it's not losing time and then I recheck manually every once in a while. So far so good.

You should try the search button- there's an advanced feature that makes it really handy and so far most of your questions have been answered and commented on previously. You'd save yourself time and get more info in the process.

You still check ignition timing with a timing light, but you don't have control over it without a piggyback or separate ignition control device...and as far as I know there isn't one that will work on the Lancer without frying the coilpacks. If they've developed a distributorless wasted spark ignition system that works on the Lancer it'd be news to me. Actually...that's not to doubt their existence so much as anyone having found one yet.

I was under the impression that valve and ignition timing were more or less exclusive of each other. Am I mistaken?

I thought the cam angle sensor was mostly what told the ignition system to fire. So if the cam is set to zero and the crank is advanced, won't the spark be firing at the same time in relation to the cam, but advanced compared to the crank?

That's how I've been rationalizing what I've been doing, but I could be wrong :D

No, I think you're right that they're related in that respect. Ignition timing is unquestionably dependent upon valve timing. I guess I was just thinking more that Ignition can be timed separately.

Hmm.... if I'm right above then they are changed separately, just not independently. You change the ignition time but not the valve time. I think to do valve timing, you need to adjust the cam to where you think it should be and then fabricate a new cam angle sensor thingy OR use a piggy to tell the spark when to fire different from when it otherwise would when the CAS sets off the ignition signal. so advance or retard timing opposite the vlave timing?... anyway seems horribly complicated, much more so than even changing the crank angle to effect the ignition timing, which is kind of a guess and check proposition in my garage :D

This is the newest car I've ever owned.

I am accustomed to doing valve jobs with feeler guages and watching a rotor while manually turning the engine. Timing was adjusted by rotating a distributor forward (advance) or backward (retard), and of course by aiming a strobe timing light through a "window" into the engine.

Naturally, when I began tuning up my Lancer, I became curious about timing adjustments - I'm used to doing them- but with no distributor I figured it had to be a computer issue.

Incidentally, my last car was an 88 Honda Prelude Si = OBD-I. The last thing I did to it was change the timing belt - only to discover the engine was already seized. That is how I came to acquire this Lancer.

And, I did search the forums about timing - but I do not have plans to do any serious modification to the car, so high-performance advice wasn't really for me, and that was all I had run across in my search.

Thanks for your help, guys!

Actually this was an original thread, so I'm very glad you brought it up. I'm also glad you're bringing experience and knowledge, because a lot of nublets don't. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but in this case you're far less likely to repeat or make stupid threads. Welcome aboard. :)

I stand corrected- we probably skipped over the more rudimentary stuff in favor of "making mroe power with timing" or the simpler stuff is just hidden inside the info about same.

no biggie, at least it's not another "check out my stock OZ rims with Goodyear tires" thread :lol:'

Back to topic, I believe OBD-II was mandadted for 1995 but some manufacturers started in 1994.

To further add some mud to this thread, ignition timing and cam timing can be altered independently of each other.