we hooked up my buddies logger to the car today, and it was running -3 deg ignition timing to 15 deg at idle. Why? At WOT it was hittin 42 deg. Then it said my throttle was only hittin 75%...just weird. no slack in the cable at all. even though all this is going on...all my fuel trims are fine. we're confused!! please help!!

i dont know about the timing issue, but my tps reading while logging was 78%, so you're fine there.

I've personally seen the timing go into low negative numbers when the cam timing was not right. If your cam timing marks are not lined up perfectly, then that can be the cause. Usually, the motor will idle rough, and have low vac, but run fine off idle. I'd first check your cam timing marks. Seems to me that when its off, the ECU is just hunting around trying to get the motor to idle smoothly..thats why its jumping..not to mention that the exhaust cam has the sensor on it, and compares that signal to the crank sensor..

Originally posted by XtremeRS
I've personally seen the timing go into low negative numbers when the cam timing was not right. If your cam timing marks are not lined up perfectly, then that can be the cause. Usually, the motor will idle rough, and have low vac, but run fine off idle. I'd first check your cam timing marks. Seems to me that when its off, the ECU is just hunting around trying to get the motor to idle smoothly..thats why its jumping..not to mention that the exhaust cam has the sensor on it, and compares that signal to the crank sensor..

what matt said. i had the same problem when i put on adjustable cam gears. my idle was way bad though. youll have to redo the timing belt...

yeah it's got the lumpy idle. i've taken it to several of Satan's lairs about the timing, though they all say it's fine and just charge me out the ass for service fees. thx for the responses guys. tommorow we're gonna check the gears out. thanks again

This would make sense with the timing.....his car lopes pretty bad because of the problem. Most people ask him if he is cammed....its pretty funny

My timing was reading between -15 to -3 while data logging it. I knew that didnt seem right, now my belt is rubbing on something because i can see the rub on the belt on the side closest to the engine internals. My head is coming off to be done all over again and install my water pump. I have the same symptons, but just wasnt positive of the timing since i had no code.

Droping to negative will happen regardless of the cam timing. Cam timing can exacerbate this, but even with dead-on cam timing you will see this happen at idle anyway.

Don't forget what you see on a logger is not absolute timing, it is timing advance off the ECU's preprogrammed base, which is roughly 12*BTDC. Any positive or negative timing would have to be added to the base value to determine actual timing.