Restore the Spark in Your Corvette's Engine

From Jeffrey Zurschmeide, former About.com Guide

See More About:

9 of 9

Check Your Ignition Timing

You can see the Top Dead Center timing mark on the pulley just below the teeth of the timing tab. This photo was taken looking down at the timing area from the driver's side of the engine bay.

Photo by Jeff Zurschmeide

Attach a timing light to your engine and point it at the harmonic balancer pulley – you may need to clean things off a bit to see clearly. The timing light is a strobe light that flashes every time your #1 cylinder fires (or, whichever cylinder you put the inductive clip onto). You want to use #1 to get the timing right. There’s a notch on the pulley and a set of pointers. Look up the timing setting at idle for your particular engine and make sure the timing is correct – too much advance can blow up your engine! Not enough advance can make your car run hot, and poorly. If you have to adjust the timing, there’s a clamp with a bolt holding it in place at the base of your distributor on the intake manifold. Be sure to tighten it up again when you’re done adjusting!