Roxy: Timing, Timing, Timing

Took the new Actron CP7529 Digital Timing Light out for its first spin today.  Also had to shell out for an auxiliary 12v battery.  The positive and negative leads on the light go to the battery, the pickup goes to the spark plug wire, and then you connect the battery negative to an engine ground.  Worked like magic.

But... no one mentioned the oil spray.  Actually, once I had the alternator cover off, I did think to myself, "How will this spin without making a giant mess in the process?"  And sure enough, with the engine running and alternator spinning, a fine mist of oil sprayed out as expected.

Turns out you need to make either a cover with a small open window, or even a solid plexiglass one, so you can see the timing marks without getting sprayed.  Good to know...

But before I had the cover off, I did use the light just in RPM mode to finally set a good idle.  It was definitely idling way too fast, which I already knew.  Used the idle screw to bring it down to hover around 1350 or so.  At that speed, the timing mark looked to be between the F and T.  So slightly retarded.

New carb settings:  air screw at 1 turn even, idle screw only 1/4 turn out.

But then I did a static timing test.  I thought I'd done it before, back when I was having all the carb issues, but checking my notes, I don't think I ever did.

The shocker here was that when I checked with just the static light, the points were opening after TDC.  I've got a thread going on the S90 forum about whether this could be related to the engine work.  No definite answers yet.  Next step is I need to rig that oil shield and check advance timing.