Can someone PLEASE clarify this for me! Timing on '81 ZXT

[Guest bastaad525]

Okay I posted this in another thread but it seems to be a dead thread so I'm gonna ask again. My turbo motor is running pretty badly and some people have suggested it may be the timing is off. It's an '81 ZXT motor with the crank angle sensor. Now, on my N/A motor, there was a notch in the crank pulley, that you used to line up with the little metal plate with the timing marks on it. When I went to check the timing on this motor I saw no such notch on the pulley. However on the gear that is behind the pulley, the one that the CAS reads off of, I did notice that on tooth of the gear stuck out, it was much thicker in relation to the thickness of the gear itself, and looked like it was screwed or bolted onto the gear. Does this one tooth denote TDC, and is this what I should be using to adjust my timing? If that one raised tooth is what I'm supposed to use, it was WAY off the scale, I'd say it was set to somewhere between 30-40* BTDC at idle.

 

IF that is what I"m supposed to be looking at, would being that far advanced cause the symptoms the car is having, of totally lacking power, bogging/hesitating very badly off idle, and light grey ashy looking spark plugs?

[Guest szlash280z]

do you have a ZX haynes manual? check that out if you have one. it might be able to tell you.

[Guest bastaad525]

I do, and it does not really specify what to look for, as far as a mark to line up. It does say to adjust the timing my moving the CAS instead of the dizzy, but that's about it.

[tickwon]

bastaad525, man...I was having the same problem with timing (I still don't know how to set the damn thing). Well, the car runs fine now. I resetted the ECU...but the Hyanes is crap when trying to figure out timing. I have no timing marks that I can see on the crank, just hash marks...no numbers. But from what I hear the ECU controls the timing, what doesn't make sense is what if the timing is off...how do you get to the CAS while the car is running? Just thought I'd add that...I've never had this sort of problem when it comes to timing.

 

Chris

[240hoke]

i had a similar situation when i first started up my l28et engine. But the problem i had was the magnets were in backwards. Thats SDS though and i have no idea about hte factory stuff, but i would definitly check the hall sensor and its aligment. I heard a good many stories about the hall sensors going out.