I appreciate your advice here and I'm not trying to be antagonistic but I still don't understand everything.
Engine in question has done 43,000 miles and there's very little in the way of wear on the cam chain and no reason to be overly concerned about gear wear. For now, I'm prepared to accept that as it is it's good enough and all I want to do is not lose the current set-up.
But, as far as I can make out, all that can be lost is the synchronisation between the rotor arm tip and the terminals on the cap. I'm not seeing that as 'crucial'.
So the timing signal is from the crank (which won't change no matter what I do) and the cam sensor is there to tell when each cylinder is to fire (TDC combustion stroke not TDC gas exchange stroke - and even then possibly only on start up) and for identifying individual cylinder mis-fires. Independent of the cam sensor is the distributor shaft's orientation which can only affect the rotor arm tip's synchronisation wrt the cap. I just can't see why 2 degrees is so important. What am I missing?
Not available in UK and expensive to import when I lost my job in December and need every scrap of money to finance new business. And I need the truck for work. No pressure then....
1. It's really easy to be more than 2 degrees off, even when "aligning marks".
2. You don't know that the cam/crank alignment is correct now. Timing chain wear, cam gear wear, distributor gear wear, distributor housing wear can all affect the cam/crank synchronization.
Engine in question has done 43,000 miles and there's very little in the way of wear on the cam chain and no reason to be overly concerned about gear wear. For now, I'm prepared to accept that as it is it's good enough and all I want to do is not lose the current set-up.
The scan tool doesn't tell you that the TIMING is wrong. It tells you that the cam sensor isn't synchronized to the crank sensor. That has NOTHING to do with the ignition timing, but it does affect alignment of the rotor tip to distributor terminal.
But, as far as I can make out, all that can be lost is the synchronisation between the rotor arm tip and the terminals on the cap. I'm not seeing that as 'crucial'.
TIMING is set by the crank sensor and the reluctor on the crank snout. That signal gets modified by the computer, the computer controls the timing based on it's programming--but it all starts with the crank (not cam) sensor.
So the timing signal is from the crank (which won't change no matter what I do) and the cam sensor is there to tell when each cylinder is to fire (TDC combustion stroke not TDC gas exchange stroke - and even then possibly only on start up) and for identifying individual cylinder mis-fires. Independent of the cam sensor is the distributor shaft's orientation which can only affect the rotor arm tip's synchronisation wrt the cap. I just can't see why 2 degrees is so important. What am I missing?
I'm not sure how your location in the UK affects not being able to get a scan tool.
Not available in UK and expensive to import when I lost my job in December and need every scrap of money to finance new business. And I need the truck for work. No pressure then....