[T3] Timing Light

[Daniel Nohejl]

> Does the strobe flash work? (Does it at least flash?)

Yes, it flashes fine.

> Most timing lights have just 3 connections to the car: + & - power, and an 
> inductive clip that goes around the #1 SP wire. Does this have more? Seems 
> like it would have to, if it measures dwell, and I don't know how it can 
> measure advance, unless there's some other input. That comes to 5 wires, at 
> least in my mind.

There’s power, ground, inductive clip, and a wire for reading dwell. Advance is “programmed” by pressing up or down arrows on the display. There are a number of functions built in including changing the dwell readout for the number of cylinders, etc. 

> If you have more than 3 wires, try disconnecting any, other than the 2 power 
> wires. (And make sure that you're not clipped on the wrong side of the coil.)

Definitely not clipped onto the wrong side of the coil. The miss happens even without the dwell wire attached. We have so much damn stuff packed into the back of the car that it’s a real PITA and attention draw to unload everything in a parking lot and check the timing. Since this isn’t a capital emergency and by Sunday we’ll be in Oregon with other VW folks, we may just save the experimenting until then. 

> You could also try taking your power directly off the battery. I liked the idea 
> of using a separate battery, but you probably don't have one handy.

Yes, true, but since the light has worked off of the coil without issue for the last 13 months, it seems that something would now have to be “wrong” for the light to no longer work off the coil correctly. 
I’ve yet to add a spare battery to what I carry on a road trip. Heck, we drastically scaled back on what we carried last year and we still have too much!

> You could also try clipping the inductive pickup on a different place, or even, 
> just as a test, onto a different SP wire.

I tried the inductive clip at different points on the plug wire and it didn’t seem to matter. I didn’t try putting it on other wires.

Also, I noticed a random thing this evening after having occasion to lean against both rear fenders with the engine off after a long highway drive: there was notably more engine warmth radiating out of the air intake vents on the passenger side of the car than the driver’s side. We were driving west and the sun had long since set by the time we stopped for the night so it wasn’t about radiant light hitting that side of the car. Seems odd, no?