Originally posted by StinkyZ
I'm not worried about the maf. Lets just say your maf can read as much air as your car can pull through it. Do you guys set the load scales to the highest load possible, just below it, leave it stock? Timing is what I'm more concerned about. Are you guys just raising it until you hear it detonating and back it off? I'm sure some people wont want to share but thats cool.
It's all a compromise. There's a certain ideal range for timing advance and the benefits of more timing drop off rapidly at a certain point until you're actually losing ground. Also, pulling back timing and running a conservative afr of 11:1 can let you run more boost and make more power on pump gas than more timing with less boost. Some of the higher hp pump gas dsm folks like Dre with the custom-targa 2g run very low timing (keep a sharp eye on the egt timing levels) with sky high boost- and Dre has spent enough time on the dyno to prove that he could make more power doing it that way.
Here are two threads on timing that may help.
http://www.fullthrottletech.com/foru...hread.php?t=99
http://www.fullthrottletech.com/foru...5&page=1&pp=10
I don't know how you're detecting knock but I wouldn't recommend waiting until you can hear it with your unaided ears. If your ecu can't process it in any way, set up an earphone/amp off of the knock sensor line and listen for it manually.
http://home.netcom.com/~bsundahl/kno...nockSounds.htm