Ha, no wonder the car was running terribly!

You guys may remember me asking a few days ago if there was an easy way to get the timing on my '90 Miata back to stock (10° BTDC).

Finally borrowed a timing light from a friend to fix it this evening.

drum roll

It appears on reassembly we had moved the CAS to 3-4° AFTER TDC.

Bumped it up to 12-13 BTDC, car is running MUCH better!

3-4 after sounds like a good way to melt something down. I'm betting the manifold was glowing.

Glad you found it. Things like that are always a huge relief to me. I always see dollar signs until the problem is found.

we had some trouble adjusting the timing on my buddy's NA, screwed up somehow and got it a couple degrees ATDC like you did.
It was amazing how badly it was running=] lol.
Luckily caught it and figured out why the CAS wasn't changing the timing when we turned it like it should have: jumper lead was unplugged. lol

Toyman01 wrote: 3-4 after sounds like a good way to melt something down. I'm betting the manifold was glowing. Glad you found it. Things like that are always a huge relief to me. I always see dollar signs until the problem is found.

Possibly! But it's an aftermarket header with header wrap.

I'm hoping I didn't hurt something on the drive home with that timing. Seems to be running good now, oil/coolant are good, but it seems AWFULLY noisy on startup. I know the 1.6s have a reputation for being a noisy in a "OMG is the engine falling apart" kind of way............but this seems worse than before?

I don't know. I guess I need to check to see if the crank pulley is wobbley.

It did drive just fine on the way to work this morning.

Tick tick tick noise or something else?

A trick I learned from a Spec Miata guy recently: turn the CAS until you see just a sliver of a moon through the adjustment slot. That should be about 13 degrees BTDC. I checked with a timing light and it was spot on. You'll want to double check with a timing light as soon as you're able, but at least that would put you in a safe ballpark.

I really don't understand why the Miata crowd finds this all so fascinating/complex/difficult. It's essentially still a distributor, and you rotate it to change the timing.

If you want to get all fancy-pants, use a punch and mark it for the various settings, like 10, 12, and 14 degrees. Then you can adjust it spot on in mere seconds.

^It was just that we accidentally wiped off the mark for reinstallation.

Not that its so amazing.

z31maniac wrote: ^It was just that we accidentally wiped off the mark for reinstallation. Not that its so amazing.

I did the same thing recently. The integra had a nasty oil leak coming from the dizzy o-ring. So, I carefully marked the distributor position because I didn't have a timing light and as soon as it was off the car I proceeded to wipe off said mark during the cleaning process. Doh!

Now I own a timing light.

When I changed the CAS o-ring I used a scribe to make an indelible line.

One of the few times I've been smart in the garage.