Timing the motor

[blykins]

Originally Posted by Jaydee

Another quick way, Take out number one plug, turn motor over by hand, until you feel compression, insert a long thin screwdriver down plug hole, and youl feel the piston come up. As it nears the top use 2 fingers to hold the screwdriver against the head with other hand make a pencil mark on the crank pulley.keep turning it over as the screwdriver comes up and back down, as your fingers bottom out on the head again, make another mark. between the two marks should be tdc. As you rock the engine, youll get a feel for it. That should be pretty close. "
JD

Alright, so tell us how you'd find 36° BTDC after that.

That's a very crude way of finding TDC, and probably isn't even accurate enough to do that.

This is why and how engines get screwed up, don't run right, lose power, etc.

If there are no marks, find a way to make marks. If the balancer marks don't show up, get some MSD timing tape, use a piston stop and figure out where TDC is. Put on the timing tape, get a timing light, time the engine, and do it the right way.

You all may get red at me for saying that, but I promise you that if I sold someone a $20k engine and they asked where to put the timing at and my reply was, "Put a screwdriver in the hole, find TDC, then just move the distributor around until it sounds right..." then all thoughts of professionalism would go down the toilet.

[Jaydee]

Of course not. I said it'll be pretty close. It'll get the car started etc.
If I sold someone a $20.000 dollar engine, I'd be emberrased if I didn't put any timing marks on it. I know how to do it properly. I was being basic to help out.
JD