Timing Light?

[falcon428]

Im looking to buy a new timing light and looking for a quality one, does anyone have any recommendations for me?
TIA!

Rodney

[jayb]

For what it's worth I've had good luck with the Summit Racing timing light (their brand).  They get pretty beat up while I'm running engines on the dyno, and the Summit light has taken its share of abuse and still works.  Also I have had good luck with Sears timing lights.

[rcodecj]

My Sears timing light is near 30 years old, has fallen off the fender quite a few times, still works great, but I don't know how the new ones would be.
I have read the the MSD timing light is good also. I seem to remember that the dial back timing lights can cause problems when using an MSD ignition, but I could be remembering wrong, they might have something on their site about it. Hope this helps.

[falcon428]

I had a 30 yr. old Sears timing light too.  Loaned it out and never got it back, so here I sit looking for a new one.  It was a simple one that did its job.  Never used one with dial back, wasnt sure the advantage to it?  I am afraid to buy a Sears timing light today, have not had alot of luck with the new stuff.  I will look at the MSD light closer, has anyone had expierence with the Equisse(sp?) from Summit? 

Thanks for the advise, just wanna only have to buy 1 more, no loaning out tools anymore.  To much never makes it back home.

[Drew Pojedinec]

I've got that Equis light.
I have a few rules about timing lights....

must be fairly accurate, $125 or less, must be able to tell engine speed (most of my junk doesn't have a tach), and I like the button for advancing the timing light action.

It met my criteria and has been in use for some time with no issues.

[rcodecj]

I had a 30 yr. old Sears timing light too.  Loaned it out and never got it back, so here I sit looking for a new one.  It was a simple one that did its job.  Never used one with dial back, wasnt sure the advantage to it?  I am afraid to buy a Sears timing light today, have not had alot of luck with the new stuff.  I will look at the MSD light closer, has anyone had expierence with the Equisse(sp?) from Summit? 

Thanks for the advise, just wanna only have to buy 1 more, no loaning out tools anymore.  To much never makes it back home.

The advantage to a dialback timing light is if you're harmonic balancer is not marked all the way you can still read total timing. I take all my balancers and engrave them with 40 degrees on them. If you were working on a car with only marks to 10 degrees on the balancer it would be handy to use a dial back light. For instance if it read 10 degrees and was dialed back 30 degrees it would be 40 degrees. I have never owned a dial back, but I can see where they would be handy to use on cars without fully marked balancers.

Here is the link to MSD where they say dial back timing lights are not recommended.
http://www.msdignition.com/page.aspx?id=3306

[Cyclone03]

I lost my first,and at the time only timing light, about 4 years ago. It was a Sears I got for my 17th birthday in 1981 work great until I loaned it.

Even with the removeble cords it still got yanked into the fan and tossed about 20 feet,cord mangled,lens and tube broken....I was PO'ed for sure. Friend who murdered it said he'd but me a new one,I let it go as I wasn't tweeking distributers at the time.

I got a Summit Dial type now,it seems ok but I don't think it's as stable as the old Craftsman at higher RPM. Timing moves a little at 3000rpm.

[TorinoBP88]

A dial back light will allow you to check your timing curve, this is very useful!