Good info... I'm reading some posts that people are having somewhat hard time getting the piston stop to read right on 0 degrees since they end up a few degrees off when they end up checking with a timing light anyway... plus im not sure how to accurately measure 10 degrees and mark that from 0 without a degree wheel. So I think to myself that if I wire up one coil/plug to the MS3X and leave the stock PCM running the engine at a constant 10 degree's... I could simply switch the timing light pickup from CYL 1 on engine to the single coil I have wired up and compare the line I made on the balancer.. if I need to adjust the MS3 offset to match the stock 10 degree location.. this would at least give me 10 degree's fairly accurately since I need this more than I do 0 anyway. I just dont know if there would be a difference in the MS3X single coil vs 8 coil offset settings since I would use the 8 coil setting to fire the test coil, then switch it back to single coil mode to bypass the stock PCM and fire the stock single coil optispark.Matt Cramer wrote:I think the stock LT1 ignition has some sort of external module that takes a 5 volt signal, so that should be easy to run with the MS3.
When we find ourselves dealing with an engine that doesn't have timing marks (like the new Hemi, which CAN'T even have timing marks from the factory because the damper is not keyed to the crank!), we usually use a piston stop to find TDC, and draw timing marks on it with White-Out, a paint pen, or whatever else we can get to stick to the damper. Forcing the stock PCM to run 10 degrees should work in theory - as long as the timing was correctly set at the factory.
I guess the way I understand it is if the MS3 timing at 10 degrees is matched up to the original system's 10 degrees.. this would be the main objective, and since other newbie timing mark locator people like me are having problems getting it spot on, I'm sure I would have similar problems.