Ignition Timing vs EGTs | What's The Correlation? [HPA Q&A]

#highperformanceacademy #learntotune

[jimbrown]

EGTs are affected by too many factors to be useful in "tuning" your engine,
and sometimes the EGT's behavior is totally counter intuitive.
However, if you actually "KNOW" what temperature range is dangerous to the health of the engine,
it can be a useful warning device, but this depends on many different factors.

For instance, Water Injection can actually make the EGTs GO UP !!! (under certain circumstances).

The EGT at the Turbine Inlet of a Turbo Charged Engine is a useful danger indicator.

Logging the EGTs on every cylinder can catch odd, or intermittent, problems with mis-firing on 1 or 2 cylinders,
and point you to the problem area.

It's more of a diagnostic, or warning tool, rather than a "tuning" tool.
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[quillmaurer]

I'm still trying to understand why everyone says there is this correlation yet also says it isn't useful for tuning ignition timing - yes things like boost pressure and AFR will also influence EGT, but if you hold those constant and only change ignition timing shouldn't you be able to use that to find optimal ignition timing by the lowest EGT? Not as good as a dyno for sure, but not everyone has a dyno.