New engine timing question

[Fishybill]

Recently, I upgraded the old style Mercruiser 140 engine in my boat with a brand new 2003 3.0. The retrofit was a pain, but worth it as the performance increase was tremendous....

I used to do all the maintanence on my old eninge, and just did the break-in oil change and servicing on the new engine...Everything is elecronic now; no points or dewll to adjust, and the engine valves are self adjusting...sweet!

But, I have not been able to re-time the engine. The new coil has no accessable posts for connecting a timing light. All the connections have been upgraded to watertight snap on type and no "posts" are exposed. Disconnecting to expose the conductors kills the engine. The disributor has two unused wires available; a harness of sorts for tuning, or so I assumed. But after rigging jumpers to them I found no power to activate the timing light...?????

Does anyone know how to hook up a timing light to a late model Mercruiser 3.0? Do I need some kind of special adapter? I bought a Seloc manual but misplaced it during a recent move. <Dope!..smacking side of head> [img]graemlins/1zhelp.gif[/img]

[A.C.G.S.]

FB,
Does your t-light have three or four wires?
Three wires + - to batt. and no.1 spark plug

ACGS.

[Fishybill]

3 wires. Ah ha! I hadn't thought of that. But, my batteries are up in the bow... Guess I can also hook up to annode on starter and block, yes?

[1pump]

The better timing lights are self-powered, but quite a bit more $$.
It's nice not to have extra cables in the way, though.

[Fishybill]

Well we're only talking iron duke four banger so a couple of wires is no biggie. Amazing though, how newer technology with the same displacement runs 40-60d hotter, outputs a great deal more power, and yet burns less fuel. My boat's 40gal range was at least 100 miles with the old engine. It will be interesting to see what I get now. Jets are forgiving, but I/o's are efficent.