There is probably not a single reader of this magazine who does not want his or her Pontiac's engine to perform to its best ability regardless of its number of cylinders or cubic inches. To reach that ...

Both initial ignition timing and total ignition timing (advance) are usually expressed in crankshaft degrees as read at the harmonic balancer. These values define where the spark plug fires in terms ...

Your Mustang's distributor performs one heck of a job. It has to deliver a timed spark to each spark plug at precisely the right moment in sync with piston travel and crankshaft, camshaft, and valve ...

Some very valuable tuning tools are greatly misunderstood. Take the lowly vacuum advance canister. Many enthusiasts dismiss this device as superfluous—or worse—only for emission-controlled engines.

Older vehicles with distributor-based ignition systems need their timing checked on a regular basis, otherwise you can have a host of problems. Starting becomes difficult, idling will be rough, ...

Every engine has a means of coordinating the timing between the valve train and the rest of the engine. Some engines use a timing chain and some a timing belt. A timing belt has the relatively ...

Do you know what a timing belt or a timing chain is and what they do? Could you find them on your vehicle's engine if you had to? If you answered no, don't sweat it. Both are buried behind a lot of ...