smog

I was wondering if my timing is off by a couple degrees could that make me fail a smog test?

thanx

Yup. If its too far advanced you might have high NOx and if its too far retarded you might have high HC.

dam. ON my honda it says to match up the white mark with the pointer with the vacuum advance plugged. And then it says hook everything back up and then the pointer should be pointing to the red mark. When i do this it is in between the red mark and the white mark, but more towards the white mark. Any advice on that?

not sure which manual you're reading, but the white mark is TDC, the red mark is the advance mark (usually around 20* BTDC) It would help, of course, if you mentioned year and model.

I'm always amazed that people ask about advice around here and don't bother mentioning what it is we're discussing!

But anyway....if its a vacuum advance distributor (which I assume it is from your discription) you are usually aiming for the red mark with everything disconnected. But also its not uncommon to see the advance mechanism stick or malfunction.

It would also help if you'd tell us where it failed and what it failed, and what type of test it is (or what state its in, at the least)

Or you could have a real shop look at it too :licka:

Be careful on your honda. My 91 1.5 liter rotates counterclockwise. So when i set my timing i didnt pay attention and had it way off.

sorry, its an 86 honda accord lx. the manual that ive read is on autozone.com under the repair guide thing. It havent done a smog test yet, but im going to after i try and fine tune it. I am in CA and its not registered right now so i dont really want to drive it too far. The closest shop thats any good is about 20 miles away.

thanx