OK, so I'm tuning a car on the road for the first time. I've asked some of what I'm about to ask before, but I can't find where I asked it, and therefore can't look at the answers I got last time :(

1) In simple terms, I should advance timing until I see the first hint of knock and then back of, right?

2) Considering that I'm tuning in the dead of winter, how far should I back off once I've found the Edge of Knock (good name for a rock band!).

3) In what size steps is it safe to advance timing? Can you move up a full degree at a time, or do you need to go upwards in 0.35* steps?

4) Starting with the stock map, which has some "hot spots" of knock in it (even on 94oct when the car calls for 87oct). Is the best way to correct these (I'm not trying for 0 knock, just knock that's well controlled by small (<2*) FLKC) by making downwards adjustments to Base Timing?

5) When moving timing upwards, is it best to do it with Base Timing or Max Advance? I can see the advantages to both methods, but it seems to me that adding it to Max Advance still ups the timing while giving the car the most ability to retard timing for crap gas.

6) Is it common/expected for there to be small clusters of load-rpm cells that are more knock prone than others, resulting in a "divot" in the timing map?



That's all I can think of right now, thanks for the answers.

Try and find this excel file if you dont have it...."Log file Interpolation ver2p8 public Apr18"

Not sure how good it will be for your RS, but i like it for my wrx. Lots of macros to graph out all your logs.

On the wrx the timing shape should be a mirror of your load, again not sure about the RS.

I have modified my Timing table to be like ride5000's where you just set the advance to one value (i have mine at 10) so when its not 10 you can easily see it.

Also, think of your base timing map as what your car can decrease to in a knock event.

I mean you could set your base map all negative and run 40* of advance, then your car has the ability to pull 40*. Thats overboard, i was just using it to illustrate the point. So i agree with the comment at the end of #5.

I have been tempted to set my whole advance from 10* to 20* without changing the base map just to see what happens. My theory is that it should pull timing down to where its happy then i can go back in and set the advance to that value, or change the base map value accordingly to keep a single advance #.

As for what steps to advance timing, in my experience i can advance timing 3* and not feel the difference. Same with decreasing it. Im not saying this is what you should do, but increaing by 0.35 steps is very painstaking....change map, reload, go do several WOT pulls, go over data, repeat....doing that by 0.35* steps will take forever.

When i first started playing with enginuity around 2 months ago i would have FBKC and FLKC alll the time during non-WOT pulls and a little during WOT pulls. In the last 3 days i havent had any FLKC or FBKC at all when i have been logging. IAM =16 always, KC = 10 always and ADV = 10 always and my timing map is very smooth.

I've poked at Airboy's spreadsheet. To use it with a NA car, you end up deleting about half of it and what's left is pretty self evident. On a NA car, the load is within 5% of being a perfectly flat line, yet timing needs to increase with RPM, so we don't make quite as pretty of shapes as you all do.

Wow, 3* at once? Man, being a noob at this, I would have thought 3* up all in one shot could have taken you into insta-pop territory in one jump.

I certainly wouldn't go for +3 at once. That's quite a bit. If you are anal and have the time, go for .5+. But you arent really risking anything with +1.

i do .5 increments.. better safe than sorry.

On an N/A car, I'd up the timing in at least 1* steps. Really, I'd probably go in 2* steps. Anything less than that and you are just wasting you time and exposing yourself to ticket with all those WOT runs. A knock event on an N/A car due to 1* too much timing will be very mild and won't hurt a thing.

On an N/A car, I'd up the timing in at least 1* steps. Really, I'd probably go in 2* steps. Anything less than that and you are just wasting you time and exposing yourself to ticket with all those WOT runs. A knock event on an N/A car due to 1* too much timing will be very mild and won't hurt a thing.This is a pretty good point. I guess if you have a safe enough place to do the pulls and have the time, be a little extra careful.

I personally have a totally safe road to do mine at. I could be there all day pulling logs safely. The little street racers dont even know about the spot.

The temps have been fairly low, low 70's, so I am dilaing it in now. as the temps increase, I will first try and mess with the timing compensation values instead of redialing the base timing. basically, it means I have to log when the temp goes up, but I log everyday anyway. Perhaps I should be paitent and wait till summer....but then I would question everything when winter comes, ha ha