my car hates timing lights

[dlb]

with the new engine in, i've been playing with the timing. using a timing light has always been a problem though because ones that work fine on all other vehicles won't work on mine, it's like the light just can't get a signal from the ignition wire. this was the case when i first bought the car and since then i've replaced the dist. cap, rotor, and ignition wires with new stuff and swapped out the ignition coil with the one from my parts car but all to no avail. my buddy used a trick where he bent a wire, put it in the end of the ignition wire, put it back on the spark plug, and put the clip from the timing light on the wire (i think), and that worked but i'm wondering what could be causing this problem.

the timing is great now, last night a friend had borrowed a really good timing light from someone else so we tried it and it worked, but was still finnicky. regardless, we got it to 10 degrees BTDC and the engine is running like a top now so i'm not in a panic, just curious.

[Petros]

I never had this issue with my Tercel, but I have a pretty good timing light (cheap ones are ususally not worth it). You hardly ever need a timing light with electronic ignition, only if you remove the distributor. In the old points and condenser days you were constantly messing with timing and point gap adjustments as the parts wore, it changed timing. Now it is rare that you need one. Perhaps rent or borrow one from tool rental place, set it and forget it.

You can also set timing by "ear". The best economy and power will come from the most spark advance you can run without getting ping or knock. So on a warm day, by trial and error, advance the timing a bit at a time, and accelerate hard up a big hill. When you get ping, back it off just a bit, so it will not ping. You are done.

[dlb]

thanks man. so do you think the problem has just been the timing lights themselves? friends and i have tried 3 altogether, and this last one had the best results but it was still touch and go.

it's running like a dream now, i'm so pumped. i was super bummed at first because it ran great when cold, very peppy, but would get really hot very quickly and start pinging a lot. i seafoamed the shit out of it and the pinging diminished by about 1/2 and i think i suffocated some poor bastard behind me who had his windows open--the horrible filth that came out the exhaust was terrifying and plentiful--but it still pinged and the air/fuel mixture was good so i figured it had to be the timing. what's odd is that when we initially got the car going, it ran like hell at 10 degrees BTDC so we advanced it quite a bit and that was where we left it. i'm guessing now but maybe because the engine had been sitting for the last year it just needed more time to get lubricated and cleaned out before it would run properly at the correct timing. anyways, the engine is happy now so back to the old mystery clunk.