i was in the 5th gen forum and they were talking about advancing timing 2 degrees using a consult II scan tool.
i am SOOO not familiar with any of this. it's all new to me.
anybody know if you can do this???

they've said you can gain 5hp for every degree advanced.

here's the link
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=395800

 

Do it and forget about running regular unleaded... just an FYI

 

^^^What octane do you need to run?

 

Playing around with the timing in a car is an art and can be dangerous. The timing belt controls your valves. By stepping up the timing you are causing the valves to open and close at different times. I don't recall, but I am pretty sure our car has variable timing to adjust when the valves open and close. I don't fully understand this art, but with variable timing I don't know how it would effect our 6th gen. either way this is not really a worthwhile mod to do. It's too risky on the engine. The last thing you want to do is mess up valves and pistons. And as mentioned you will need to run strickly on premium fuel.

 

Advancing the timing will only work well with high octane gas... some people on that same thread complain about even 89 giving them beef with knocking, so I suppose you're looking at 91 or better.

No comment on the fact that you probably should be using 91 already, unless you live in California.

Speaking of which, when I went to San Diego 2 weeks ago premium was $2.97. Poor bastards.

 

Too much false info in this thread.

You need to use Premium octane in your Max(91+).
Timing advance will not hurt the engine, we have knock sensors to prevent hurting the engine. If it detects a knock, it will send signal to ECU and ECU will retard timing to prevent damage.

I don't know if the 6th gen ECUs can remember the advancment of timing like hte 5th gens. Only way to find out is go to dealer and get it done.
On 4th gens, the timing goes back to 15 degrees after you turn off the car. In 5th gens it will remember the timing advanced until you change it again with the Consult II


Also, 1 degree does not equal 5hp...

 

i read in the 5th gen forum somewheres about 5 claimed hp.
like i said before, i'm new to this and don't know much. that's why i'm asking...

well... looks like i'm going to have to be a guinea pig and advance it at school with the scan tool. lol

 

LOL, that's the point... advance the timing, it knocks, it retards the timing. Net benefit? ZERO. Unless of course you run premium, and not all premium is created equal.

It's not worth the hassle.

Timing advance is 90% of what all "chips" do the other 10% if stiffen shifts... and they require premium.

 

Sidenote #2, we have timing chains not belts, and this has nothing to do with cam timing.

It's BTDC timing, base ignition timing is not equal to cam timing.

 

Well not to argue too much, but if you're already running premium 100% of the time -- and I know I'm not the only one -- then it couldn't really hurt, could it?

And I just hope this doesn't turn into another "what octane should I run?" thread...

Well I wouldn't be caught dead "chipping" my car with some BS snake-oil magical box from ebay... but if there's a REAL, quantifiable result from timing advance, that's another story and I'm more than willing to give it a try. As long as somebody else tries it first.

 

A lot of us 5 g Maximas do it, Altima guys do it and 350z/G35 guys do it ..

 

And what is it that they use to do it????

-MO-

 

Consult II, or the dealer.

 

First of all, if you run lower grade gas, the ECU is already retarding the timing, so you are already less that 15 base. For those of us smart people that run premium, we can benifit from the advancement of timing. 2 degrees is not enough to make the engine knock with premium gas(in 90% of the cases). Guess what, if it doesn;t knock with the advanced timing, you get more power
If you don't want to do this, don't. No one is making you do this.

 

I love 17 degrees, SO SO SO much more low end than with standard 15 Degrees and it only cost me 20 bucks. best 10 or more HP i have ever gotten

 

You should be running at least 91 octane anyway. If you aren't, your car is not performing the best it could.

 

so what do you guys think?? give it a wack at my shop or just forget about it. i run supreme octane 24/7 anyways.
if more of you 5th and 6th genners think it's worth it, just let me know.
i'm about 70% on this... it sounds like it might be worth it. i just want to know if it'll work.

the VQ35 was said to stay set at 17 right??? but not on the older model VQ30?
if all it takes is premium gas and the Consult II, than let me know. because then i'd probably end up doing it...

lemmie know
-Nick

 

95-99 will retard, 00-05 will NOT, so it will be worth it ...

 

I gotta hand out props to anyone that can feel 10 hp in the seat of their pants!

I'd like to see real numbers ie; where does the 10 HP come from, what other mods are involved that could add to the timing advance number, etc. Is there someone that dyno'd a stock Max with just the timing change?

 

to be honest, i don't think anyone has really dyno'd at all. there's been only a handful. like koreanmaxman that i know for sure of. but he dyno'd with Greddy exhaust, Injen intake, and i think he had a UDP.

i've been on and off on the 6th gen thread, and i don't recall anyone ever talking about advancing timing on their cars. so a dyno'd number would be scarce...

i'd probably dyno, but my "stock" maxima needs quite a few tune ups... lol

 

So where does the 10 HP figure come from?

 

I'd like to know that answer also....

 

This is something that Ive been looking on doing. Since I run premium fuel ALL the time then I guess itll work out for me w/ no prob.

 

You need to understand BTDC timing to understand where the power (allegedly) would come from in our cars...

In our cars, the timing point is set at 15° BTDC (before top dead center). Look at it this way: TDC (top dead center) refers to when the piston is at its highest point... the crank angle is 0° and the crank/rod angle is 180°.

If you're lost at this point, you might as well give up trying to understand. Otherwise, read on...

Since the crank rotates 360°, when you change the timing by 2 degrees, you're actually moving the point where the spark is fired from 345°to 343°. When you change the timing, you're actually changing the ignition process and it starts earlier (we're talking fractions of a millisecond here, but earlier is earlier ). This actually changes where the flame front hits the piston on the stroke, changes the effective compression and (if it works right) it gives more power on the downward stroke.

There's like formulas and complicated **** that you can use to figure out exactly what happens where, but this is about as much as I'm willing to type right now...

 

Thanks man, it def makes sense. Posts like this are very appreciated by novices like me on the org.

Question: So when does knock come from advancing the timing?? Is it when ignition comes while the piston is on its way up? If so, how do you know when or by how much to advance the timing?

-MO-

 

In the old days, people used to advance the timnig until the car knocked, and then u retard it by a couple of degrees. I suppose theoretically, you could disconnect the knock sensor, and advance the timnig just until it pings, and then retard it by a couple of degrees. I think that would be playing with fire. I imagine advancing the timing a couple of degrees would not be harmful. I think 5 hp for every degree is optimistic. I think it may be more like 1-2 hp. But only a dyno would know for sure.

 

Ignition always happens when the piston is on the way up, but it takes time for the expansion to catch up with the piston head, so the flame front always meets the piston on the way down (after TDC). The advantage of advancing the timing comes from hitting the piston earlier on its way down, which translates to more power on the downward stroke.

If you advance the timing incorrectly, you'll either hit the piston too early or dead center... either one will probably mess up your day in a hurry.

The knock issue comes mostly from lower octane gas not burning quick enough for the whole thing to work properly. There are a lot of variables when it comes to ignition, but there are a lot of things that are fixed -- the size of the rod, the rotation of the piston along the axis, the exact time of detonation (ignition time BTDC) and (mostly) the expansion rate of the fuel/air mixture in the cylinder. Advancing the timing only works when you know that the gas will burn quick enough to catch the piston at a certain point along the rotation... if the piston has travelled too far (or not far enough) then there will be problems. Like somebody mentioned in an earlier post, the computer will correct for knock if it senses it by retarding the detonation to make sure the piston is at the right point, thereby negating whatever timing changes you made.

 

Viquera you are sorta on the right track about lower octane fuels here is why you need to get higher octane fuel for advancing the timing:

The octane rating of gasoline tells you how much the fuel can be compressed before it spontaneously ignites. When gas ignites by compression rather than because of the spark from the spark plug, it causes knocking in the engine. Knocking can damage an engine, so it is not something you want to have happening. Lower-octane gas (like "regular" 87-octane gasoline) can handle the least amount of compression before igniting. Essentially by advancing the timing you are creating a higher compression ratio. You need to run the most compressible fuel available to avoid knocking and pinging (91+) when you advance your timing.

This still doesn't address my issue that the car, i think, uses variable timing so how could you change the timing in the first place and expect gains? Wouldn't the car essentially go back to doing what it wants?

 

Yes viguera, I understand the principle ... My questuion is, where does the "10 HP" figure come from? Someone's best guess? 10 HP at the crank I assume? Meaning roughly 7 of it at the wheels? Again, if you can feel an increase like that and feel it's worth it (gain what in the 1/4? Maybe .004 sec?), then go for it I suppose. Not worth messing with IMHO, even IF the 10HP number is realistic.

Just my $.01

 

I think this is just butt dyno talk... but I could be wrong. The car should feel quicker because there's more low-end torque, but you suffer on the top end. Everything I've read about it before says that a 1° advance pushes the torque band back by 100 rpms, so with 2 degrees you actually hit at 2800 what you'd hit at 3k rpms -- and you end up feeling like there's more power on the lower end (where you spend most of the time).

Keep in mind that this is what somebody said about what they saw their cousin's second ex-girlfriend's brother do online. I personally haven't seen it, so it could very well be that it does absolutely jack ****, even though in theory it should work. Or it could be that it works precisely as it should, but until you see somebody do it and dyno the car with no mods, I wouldn't put too much faith on it one way or another.

And there's the issue of variable timing that was brought up before too... what I've seen is that some people will mess with the camshaft position sensor and all kinds of crazyness. I'm not sure who is doing what with Maximas or if it works "off the shelf" with just a simple timing advance, but I guess you could go first and see what happens...

 

There's a WHOLE LOT of that when talking bolt-on's, from the people that make the stuff to the people that spend their hard-earned dollars. It's amazing how much faster your car feels when you WANT it to.

 

Has anyone done this yet? Just curious because my dealer sucks and wont advance the timing in my car. I guess if anyone in the DFW area has it done then let me know which dealer will perform it. As far as HP goes, Im sure its nothing extreme but I would bet money that it will perform better than any intake for the Maxima. People claim that they feel power from an intake but in reality you arent gaining much if any power at all.

 

i had the advanced ignition timing done (advanced 2deg, now at 17 deg) and have noticed a slight increase in low end power in around the town driving. my gas mileage also increased, but if you do have the ignition timing done, you should (must) run 91+ octane. I religiously put 93 in my car, so I figured that I might as well have the advanced timing done. If you put lower octane fuel into it, the engine will knock and the ecu will retard timing.

 

well my cousin should be upping his timing when i go get mines advanced, maybe this weekend so i will report bac if he feels a differnce after.

 

Has anyone considered getting stillen's performance cams?

 

I know, I have always put 92+ in my car. Just wanted to here more from people who own 6th gens to find out if its even possible. I remember SR20DEN saying something in the past talking about the 6th gen ECU but I cant remember exactly what he had said.