Timing advance help

[importknight]

hey guys i posted this on HT to no avail but maybe someone on here can help. I set my timing today with the gun to the 18 deg mark but the only way to get it to the 18 mark was to turn the distributer all the way back, i also made sure to jump the harness and im positive its lined up with the little plastic arrow. So why is my distributer all the way back if its at 18deg??? plus its running fine as of now???? Im just concerned about it being that far back. the car is stock except IHE

[Bbasso]

Why not play it safe and put it in the middle? If you have the stock ECU then let it do it's thing...
I don't see a need to adjust unless you have the means to really see the difference, the Butt Dyno is not accurate for such a small adjustment.

[importknight]

it says its at 18 and if i put it in the middle it wont even be on the 14 deg mark? or just barely

[Bbasso]

Sounds like something is wrong...
put it at 17deg, shouldn't be that hard.

[Dave_B]

What are you using for timing? do you have a timing light and know what your doing (please don't take as an insult)

Given it's mostly stock (and stock cams IIRC from HT) that shouldn't be it.

What other changes were made? What history? How did you come across this?

can you provide more details?

[importknight]

yea i have a timing light and i kno how it works, and it is set at 17-18 deg, is there anyway to reset it back in the middle at 15 deg and then set the timing again????? it seems to run fine i checked to plugs for signs of it running lean and they looked fine. im going to the track today im gonna see if i lower it if it changes the results at all because then ill just leave it alittle lower. ill let u guys kno what happens

[importknight]

ok guys so i went to the track today and its def not running well, the best and i mean best time i could get was 15.2 when i was consistently running 15.0 before, i hadnt changed the oil in a long time probably 2500 miles and then raced and was getting 15.0 then changed it soon after and fucked my timing up and now it cant even hit 15.0. im so stumped? should i bring it somewhere?

ps i did a run with it all the way and still seemed to bog or at least not pull as hard then i moved it back a mm or 2 so it would be around 16 deg