95 Accord Timing Adjustment - WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

[hahakenny]

I've heard that adjusting the timing on your distributor can help with power gain in the low end. My 95 Accord 2.2L Vtech has pretty crappy low end even after I installed the MSD ignition. Is there anything I can do to help increase my low end? I have aftermarket cold-air intake and exhaust. At higher speed, it accelerates fine.

How do you adjust the timing on the distributor? I know you have to loosen the screws and move it either forward or back but I don't know which way is correct for what I'm looking for.

For now, please tell me what to do. Thanks. (P.S. I'm probably going to swap it with an H22A. I hate the power I'm getting off of my F22. )

[jeffcoslacker]

I can't remember which way is which, but loosen ALL the holdowns (there might be three) and just rotate the distributor slightly, the idle will increase a bit as you advance, decrease as you retard timing.

I wouldn't go more than a couple of degrees, then check by putting it in gear and holding the brake and torque it up pretty good, make sure it doesn't ping. Pinging will ruin valve guides and piston tops pretty fast.

You can get a little more pop by advancing it, and you can advance a couple more degrees if you can commit to running high octane fuel always, but you'll lose some gas mileage.

If yours is really a slug, you might wanna verify that the timing sprokets are clocked correctly. That's the #1 reason I've found for really flat off-idle throttle response after a belt change...sometimes they get it wrong...