How much timing pull is normal?

I'm still trying to chase down the cause of my trucks lack of power.

Someone suggested it might be pulling timing, so I bough an ultra gauge to monitor it.

In park it averages about 10
In drive, while stopped, it averages 15
While accelerating or cruising it averages 21

BUT, when passing someone, if it downshifts to 3rd, the timing immediately drops to 10. That's also when it feels like it's struggling.

I've figured out that the harder I push my gas pedal, the weaker my truck seems.
If I ease into things, it seems to retain power.

Times when I need to really push the pedal are:
On hills to keep up speed
Accelerating on hills
Trying to pass someone on the highway
Short entrance lanes on highways where you have to get up to speed quickly in order to merge safely

In all those situations the timing is pulled to 10 or so.

Is that normal or excessive? Am I barking up the wrong tree?

 

It probably drops because your loosing vacumn for the vacumn adv (going off knowledge from older stuff)

auto or man trans?

 

It's an auto. How do I check the vacuum advance?

 

Tacomas have coil packs, and the advance is computer controlled. There is no vacuum advance. The ignition timing is determined by signals sent to the ECM from the crank sensor and other sensors.

 

Ok. But none of this answers my question. Is the pull to 10 normal? I've read things that say when a vehicle is under load, some pull is normal, but I don't know if that is true or not and to what degree is expected.

If it's not normal, where should I start? crank sensor? knock sensor? It's not throwing any codes and it seems like I could waste a lot of money replacing sensors that may otherwise be fine. Yet, if it's not a normal pull, something is obviously going on.

 

I have a 2.7 with auto and an Ultraguage. Here are some ignition timing readings (all while tranny is in Drive) :

11-16 @ idle;
20 @ 1500 rpm;
32 @ 2000 rpm;
34 @ 2200 rpm;

 

Does your timing drop at all when you are passing someone and it downshifts?

 

Does anyone have any ideas? My truck is throwing no codes but is pulling timing under load. Particularly around 3000 rpm in 3rd. Besides a quick flash of it, I never see it get into the 30's at all.

 

It should be relative to engine speed. There is a map in the computer that takes all sensors into account, but timing usually increases regardless. Since this an auto, if you manually shift it to maintain a gear, does the timing still drop at a certain rpm? Perhaps your CPU has a bad map? If you don't have a trustworthy dealer to tell you, maybe a call to URD would help. They know that computer backwards and forwards.

 

Bringing this tread back from the dead. I don't know if it's normal for the truck to pull timing to 10 when accelerating hard, but my 96 3.4 5VZE does the same thing (It's NA, stock). I get 20-30 on timing advance in normal driving, but if I mash the gas and pull up to 4-5K, it drops the ignition timing to 10. I verified with my scangauge 2. As far as I know this is normal, but not desirable. Timing should advance with engine speed. There is no way to change this with the stock computer that I know of.

 

what happens with the timing in ECT mode?

 

My truck has a manual trans - No ECT here.

 

ECT is a transmission thing. It'll hold a lower gear for longer and downshift sooner. It's like a tow haul button. Timing is based on engine RPM and load. Too much timing under load and it'll knock but as you increase rpm you'll need more timing to keep up with the added engine speed.