[AF22]

Hey everyone,

Recently i decided to try out the free advance your timming trick on club si, and now a few of my friends have told me about the "smoke pouring out of my exhaust". This has got me alittle worried so i'm posting on this board for help. Does advancing my timming cause this excess smoke? Is it natural or bad? After i advanced my timming, i noticed a good increase in my mpg from around 22 to 26, but the smoke worries me. One more thing, a week before i advanced my timming, i changed my oil filling about 4.3 quarts into my engine ( my dip stick says my oil level is perfectly at the top maxium dot ). Could my smoke be due to too much oil? I think i only get this pouring of smoke at WOT, or higher rpms ( but i never noticed this before i did any of these things )... Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[SweetEBPSi]

I could be that your oil level is a little high. When you checked your oil, did you do it when your engine was cold or after you ran your car? Also, how many degrees did you advance your timing? And third, ask your friends what color was the smoke. That can tell you something too.

 

[AF22]

I checked my oil right after i got home from a 15 mile drive, i advanced my timming the cheap club si way by 6 mm. It should be roughly around 18 degrees, no knocking, runs very smoothly.

 

[Red Si]

I checked my oil right after i got home from a 15 mile drive, i advanced my timming the cheap club si way by 6 mm. It should be roughly around 18 degrees, no knocking, runs very smoothly.

18 degrees? Good lord, isn't that a lot of advancement? I advanced my car 4 degrees and I have a pretty smooth idle, but it definitely isn't stock.....at 4 degrees I'm a little rough. I'm not saying your wrong....just something I don't understand. Could someone clear this up?

 

[SweetEBPSi]

If your Si is stock, you should only advance the timing about 1 or 2 degrees. I'm not sure what the stock degree starts at so 18 could be OK. Check your oil again when the engine is cold. That will give you the true amount of oil in the engine. When you check you oil after your engine has been running, a good amount is still up in the engine. Like I said before, ask your friends what the color of the smoke was. If I remember correctly, a whitish smoke indicates some oil burning. How old is your Si? How many miles do you have on it? Do you rev high a lot, or not? This little info can tell me a lot.

 

[AF22]

I got my car brand new at about 1 and a half years ago and i got 11,600 miles now. My car is fully broken in and i do drive it a bit hard.

My friend said the smoke was blueish, and it poured otu excessively. I moved my timming to 18 degrees, not by 18 degrees, and i have an 3" short ram intake on it.

 

[SweetEBPSi]

Sounds like your just burning oil. If you do drive it a bit hard, there is a slight possibility that you could have broken a piston ring, but I doubt that with only 11,600 miles on it. Check your oil when your engine is cold just to double check the level. Just curious, why did you get a short ram? Should have just saved up and got a cold air intake.

 

[Mugen_R]

blue/white smoke indicates that it's burning oil. 6mm shift on the distributor is quite alot, did you get a timming gun to check if it's on 18 degrees or is that what you think your running?

Also like someone mentioned, could be excess oil buring from the engine. Too much isn't good. So get that checked out. I would leave it at what ever the factory

 

[nycivicsi]

yeah.......sounds like you were getting some detonation and didnt realize it. 18 degree's is a tad much, especially on a 10.2:1 CR engine.

your burning oil.....probably due to a fried ring. do a compression test to find out which cylinder is the culprit, and get ready for a rebuild

 

[wicked92hatch]

timming spots

blue smoke is buring to much gas, from being to far advanced. Burning black smoke is burning oil from being to far retarded. your stock timing from the factory is 16 degrees, you can turn it either way 4 degrees without hurting it so check that.

 

[nycivicsi]

Re: timming spots

blue smoke is buring to much gas, from being to far advanced. Burning black smoke is burning oil from being to far retarded

you are completely backwards my friend

black smoke is caused by a super rich condition.

blue smoke is caused by burning oil.

.........and retarding the timing will do nothing more than make your car run like poop. ADVANCING the timing too much will cause detonation, which in turn will fry your piston rings, which will cause you to burn oil, which causes blue smoke out the tailpipe

 

[nycivicsi]

Re: timming spots

blue smoke is buring to much gas, from being to far advanced.

and advanced timing has NOTHING to do with gas consumption. better brush up on the ins and outs of an internal combustion engine

 

[Red Si]

Oops.....my bad. For some reason I was thinking you were talking about cam timing, not ignition timing. I guess the whole "free" thing shoulda tipped me off. Oh well, now I understand the rest of the posts....lol....

 

[CivicSiRacer]

Make sure you are using high octane gas. I advanced mine to 18 degrees and I'm using 93 octane.

 

[wicked92hatch]

timming

if i remember correctly, timming controls when the spark plug fires right. Ok when the timming is advanced the spark plug fires before is piston is at top dead center, inturn the fuel that is left in the cylinder is not burned off before the intake valve closes so if you take your intake maniflod off your will see black build up in the runners and if it is really bad you will see it in the throttleboddy but i am sure that you knew that right you just didn't mention that though. oh and buy the way i am getting bla bla bla bla turbo bla bla bla bla twincam bla bla bla bla KNOW ONE CARES JUST GET IT

 

[Kane317]

... i noticed a good increase in my mpg from around 22 to 26, but the smoke worries me...

Did nobody notice this... isn't advancing your timing going to lose mpg no gain?

 

[CivicSiRacer]

Re: Re: advanced timming, exhaust is smoking?

Did nobody notice this... isn't advancing your timing going to lose mpg no gain?

My mpg also went up from 30mpg to 32mpg.

 

[Maniac]

You can usually get away with a little more advance than the stock setting is. But the more advance you have the more you need to be concerned to be listening for detonation. Also the octane of fuel you use will have an effect on the amount of advance that you can step up to before detonation rears it's ugly head.

Under ideal conditions you should notice a little more power with more advance and as guys have noted a slight increase in fuel economy.

AF22: It is possible that you advanced your timing too far and were getting detontation. It is possible for detonation to only occur occasionally and the prolonged effect has done some internal damage. The Blue smoke is from burning oil. The first order of business would be to re-set your timing to stock and then perform a compression test and look for 1 or more weak cylinders. (already mentioned by these other guys)

Sometimes getting "free" power can come at cost afterall. It's a good practice to investigate these performance enhancing trick and understand the effects before you go and actually do it. I hope you didn't do any damage. You'll have to do some inspection to find out for sure.

BTW, here is a smoke colour guide:
1. Burning Oil creates blue smoke.
2. Excess fuel creates black smoke.
3. Burning antifreeze creates white smoke.

Wicked92hatch: You need to study up on engine dynamics before you start trying to give advice. You comments posted were either wrong or nearly impossible to understand.