setting Gen3 3sgte distributor at 0 degrees Options

[match220]

Car = Gen3 3sgte + aftermarket ECU + individual coils/distributorless setup (only using distributor for timing)

I have a question..but to get you on the same page I'll explain some things first. Today I was going over all of the final things after the rewire and making sure I've covered everything in this engine build, and it hits me that my distributor is set at the normal advance for a distributor setup, not distributorless. I don't want to use the normal mechanical advance setup because I will be running the Autronic ecu on the car and I will advance the timing in the Autronic electronically. So..I want to set the distributor at 0 degrees. If my dist is set to 10 degrees, then my settings in the ECU will start at about 2ish degrees, but I would rather set my dist to 0 so that I can start the advance at 10 or 12 or whatever the timing will come out to on the dyno on this car. For the 2nd gen 3sgte I believe the dist is allowed to move between 5°ATDC to about 20°BTDC, and I'm pretty sure that I'm using either a gen2 3s dist or a 5s one. I believe most of the dists are the same for the S family, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. If I have to leave it like this and tune it then I will, but I would rather know my dist is set at 0 degrees so that I will know exactly what my timing advance is on my car.

So my question..
How do I go about setting my dist at 0 degrees? If I had a timing light I could, BUT there is no coil or spark plug wires to provide the other means of testing with a timing light.

Hopefully I'll post another youtube video tomorrow on the recent progress over the last few months.

This post has been edited by match220: Dec 28, 2012 - 2:55 AM

[lagos]

I don't think you have to do anything to the actual distributor. In the Megasquirt stand alone that I have, you specify your base timing (10 degrees), and then use a timing light to see what it actually is at when the engine is running. Then you make adjustments in the ecu's software (i think its the angle adjustment?) until your timing light starts to match the 10 degrees your software is set for.

The factory ecu is not user programmable hence why you have to physically rotate the distributor, but in a programmable ecu you just change the setting in the software.

This post has been edited by lagos: Jan 3, 2013 - 12:59 AM