How to time a supercharger?
 

hey, i got a 95 camaro z28 with a supercharger (not sure what kind). when i got it, it was pulling great but the next day, it didn't go as fast. don't get me wrong, i still pulls me back into the seat but its not so aggressive as before. i noticed a nob under the steering wheel and it says "boost retard". so i fiddled around with it and i got it a little better but not as good as before. on the boost retard, the numbers go from 1 to 4 and its at 1 1/2 right now. how do i find the best setting?

RE: How to time a supercharger?
 

The first trick is to not trust your *** dyno. I feel every day that my car is slow as hell. Even after spraying all night long im convinced my car is slower than before. Usually not true. most of the time if you just roll on outside of the powerband the car will feel like a dog even when you get up to where the motor makes power. Now, if ur at about 4.5k on the tach I cant imagine an lt1 SC not feeling like a beast. A boost retard will probably interfere with sensors on an OBDII motor (im assuming 95 is obdII but im not certain, and i know very little about obdI). if you trick the computer via switched resistors into thinking it is experiencing certain conditions, you can lock in a fuel curve, maybe that is what ur dial is doing, but not completely sure. If it was me id do away with that thing and get my car fully tuned either on a dyno or find a buddy who has some tuning experience with software like hptuners or efi-live or something like that. My car is HPT tuned, and I swear by it.

the issue you run into is you dont know what the units are on your dial. if it is 1-4 degrees thats one thing, but if its a rating 1-4 spanning 10-15 degrees you could be in trouble if you dink with it too much. A dial like that is to "quick tune" depending on if you are using high or low quality gas. like i said, i would hook it up to some monitoring device. the advantage to hpt is you dont need to buy anything if u know someone with it. he cannot tune ur car, but he could monitor for free, and you can cruise around and check various settings to see the max setting you can use without any knock.

RE: How to time a supercharger?
 

First, does the knob even work -- does it do anything? When you twist it does it make a difference?

Second, you probably need to be running thebest fuel you can. Racingfuel or premium with octane booster, if you are playing with this.

Then, you are going to have to experiment with it, and realize the sweet spot will change with temp, barometric pressure, etc. Generally, the higher the internal pressure the lower the advance angle, but . . . you just have to experiment.