| Author | Message | ||
     Gunslinger |
I just wanted to relate some recent experience in the area of setting the timing on my M2. I frequently see the phrase that there is nothing more dangerous than a Harley mechanic working on a Buell. My own experience bears that out. A while back I had my bike tunes up by a non-afiliated mechanic with lots of experience with custom V-twins. The bike ran fine, but had some detonation under hard acceleration, particularly after I moved to California where the gas is a couple of octane lower. Eventually I bought my own timing gun and set it myself. The mechanic had set it about 5-degrees of advance from recommended! Once I had it set to factory specs the detonations went away. I know a lot of hot rodders like to set as much advance as they can get away with. One has to wonder if the factory setting may be more in line with EPA mandates than optimum performance. I tried one method suggested by someone with real experience. Set it to factory specs, then advance it a degree or two at a time, riding between adjustments. Once you get the first signs of detonation, back off 3-degrees and that is likely your optimum setting. Long story short, I did it and wound up right back at the factory setting. I would be interested in hearing from anyone else on their experiences in this area. For my part, I have my timing set to factory specs and am leaving it there. | ||
| Sparky |
I had a pinging problem with a carbed S3 when new. The selling dealer tried to resolve the issue by resetting the timing back a couple degrees. This seemed to help the pinging a little but created sluggish throttle response and an obvious lack of power especially while accelerating at speed. After I had checked the timing and found what they did, I reset the timing to specs myself and proceeded to fatten up the jetting so that it was not so lean at low to mid rpms and had ping-free acceleration throughout the rpm range. The results after I played around with the tuning over several months was great. It had crisp acceleration, ping-free operation in the SoCal weather and, still, remarkably great mileage! The hot rodder's trick of setting as much advance as possible works if there are other mods like tighter squish band, higher compression, hotter cams, etc., but for a stock engine, yes, there's probably no advantage unless the build tolerances for a particular engine might allow a slight fudging one way or the other in timing for best overall results. | ||
| Gunslinger |
Always good the hear from you Sparky. My bike is pretty much stock. The main reason I come to this site is to separate the holy water from the snake oil. The main reason Al at American Sport Bike gets my business is that he has talked me out of many a folly. I have lost count of the times he has said "I'll sell you one if you really want it. But it won't do your bike any good." I guess that is why my bike is still mostly stock. I do have a shopping list for after tax season though. |
