Help on timing

What's the best way to set timing and how advanced do you set it?

I know silly questions, right? But I'm having trouble trying to fine the sweet spot. Also I don't want to advance it to far because of my fear of burning up my pistons but the same time I want to get the most out of it.

Can you guys let me know what your timing is set to, that way I can get an idea. Thanks

6 degrees with engine warm and vac advance connected. I have a weber and headers and thought I could advance it a little but it ran better at the factory setting. You got any mods done?

6 gegrees BTDC -not 6 degrees of advance.bj

Just wanted to stop and say, man it good to find a form for Mazda B's. So thank you to the guy that made this website and the the followers.

Ya, I rebuilt my engine 20 thousands over, total seal rings (look it up, totally worth ever penny), 272 cam, header's, Weber 32/36, MSD 6A box and tech adapter, transmission conversion, aluminum one piece drive shaft conversion, front and rear sway bay, air shocks in the rear, heaver leaf springs and I think that's about it. It's been totally fun messing with little thing.

Cool keep them coming. That's what I was figuring. But I had some problems with my carb set up and I figured out that I had my vacuum advanced on the egr port. Ooops. So I swapped it and did the timing thing first with a light and it ran like a dog. Then I did it by ear, took it for a test drive, and holly $%#$@, I was doing donuts on dry pavement. I thought to myself where did this come from. So just to see where my mark was, I took the light and checked it. Know it's telling me that I'm, 55 BTDC. This sounds CRAZY, right? But it's not binging, and not doing thing out of the ordinary, except when I step on it I'm thrown back in my seat.

So what's up with this? Does any one have there dizzy this far advanced? Or does anybody have the same mods as I and have same or different results? Feed back please!

Thanks guys for posting, keep them coming.

H-m-m-m.Something aint quite right here.I have a 2200 with a 34/34 Weber,polished and ported intake and exhaust,272 Paeco cam,aluminum driveshaft,blue printed crank and rods,modified AT, header,Accel spark,front and rear sway bars,Tokico R/T shocks,running 5% BTDC with wider gapped plugs and a little richer mix,and I for damn sure aint doing no donuts on dry pavement despite a dynoed 122 rwhp.55% BTDC setting would mean that ur only 2/3 way thru ur compression stroke when the dizzy fires.If that is correct,the damn truck would be predetonating hard enough to blow the freakin head off or send the crank thru the oil pan.Either your timing light is way off, ur were drunk as a hootie owl when u checked ur timing, or some genie of physics that I am not aware of has invaded u and ur truck and taken over.Bwah-ha-ha-ha.bj

No kidding... LOL... No..no.. Wasn't drunk either... Sounds like you have almost the same set up as me, exception of the AT, I have a Manual. Cool. Ya, the light is reading 55. OK.. what I'll do is get a light without an advanced dial, just a plain jane one and try it again. HOCBJ23 are you timing your dizzy with or without the advanced hooked up? Can you tell me exactly step by step how you timed your B? Example "loosen the accelerator cable to have no tension, warm up the truck...Blah...blah... That would really help me out to point me in a direction to see if I am doing something wrong.

Ya donuts in the parking lot this morning at Starbucks when I was getting my girlfriend a coffee. I whistling like little school girl. I was impressed. Tomorrow I will take my truck in to get it dynoed again. What is your gap by the way?

How I timed the B? Well,kind of complicated since I have a 3 groove aluminum crank pulley with no timiing marks(at the time)..We found TDC the old fashioned way by removing plug from #1 cylinder and rotating the crank with the main dizzy wire removed until we verified TDC on #1.Removed dizzy cap and verified rotor was pointing at #1 plug wire scribe(it wasnt so we rotated dizzy a tad until they lined up).Then we notched the aluminum pulley at TDC using the marks on the block..Then we reattached everything,left the advance hooked up as u should,started the truck ,let it warm up until my gauge was reading 160 degrees,adjusted the idle to 850 RPM or as close as we can get since the truck lopes like a mother because of the cam,used a timing lite and set her back to 6% BTDC,tightened everthing back up and test drove it.It was loading up at idle so we set it up to 5% BTDC, pulled the plugs and regapped from .032 to .035 ,leaned out the carb a tad,redrove it and it was much better.I put it on a dyno shortly after that and pulled 3 passes with different timing settings and 5% seemed to work best so I have left it alone pretty much other than going back a tad rich.( I have to lean it back out to pass emissions here cause it blows the unburned hydrocarbon test if I dont).Still no donuts.I think if it were a 5 speed,I might get a wheel chirp from time to time,but the auto just is too sloppy when it shifts,despite adjusting the shift points.Plus I am running 16 inch centerlines with some sticky compound tires.It will put ur head on the headrests 1 to 2 but that is about it.Paeco tells me this cam makes most of its power in the mid-range or 3000 to 4500revs so I aint got much grunt off the line anyway..Oh well Ms.HOC can drive it as it is so I will put up with the AT.Lol.bj

Ya, AT's are sloppy, that's one of the reason I swapped out the AT for MT. On, the timing, OK so you did the "old school" way. Ya I haven't done the "old school" way after I found out my carb problem which was having the dizzy hooked up to the wrong port. Silly me. I'll try that but, I think that I might be pretty good though because I'm not getting any pinging and you are right, there would be significant signs of bad timing. It also starts up fine and shuts down fine too. So... It's little confusing. I wonder if the MSD is playing a trick on my timing gun. I think I read some where that MSD boxes can do that. Has any body come a crossed that? Thanks again bj. I will let you know what I find out at the dyno shop. Can anybody think what else it might it be?

any kind of extraneous electrical current can interfere with a device measuring another electrical current so its possible I guess.Thats why no pacemakers allowed around microwaves.Lol.bj