In this thread
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/351858-introducing-my-timing-light-injection-timing-digital-riv-method.html I demonstrated my digital RIV timing light on the bench and it worked great. Getting it to work in the engine was a different story with a few setbacks. I worked out some of the kinks and got the sensor installed and just ran it in my 85 300D and shot the following video. It was very bright out- full sun and the contrast is not great. I will try to get a better video after sunset.
Per my RIV timing light, timing is around 14 deg after TDC. My MPG is not very good so I'll be measuring timing chain stretch and set the timing to FSM spec of 15 deg after TDC when it get's warmer and see if MPG improves. When reving the engine, I can see the timing marks advance. I'll try to get a video of that later.
I plan to offer my digital RIV timing light in the rental section when it is ready. There's more work to be done to make it more robust. I think it will be a very useful tool for many here.
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO!
The timing light used is an Actron CP7529 Inductive with RPM and advance feature. Here you can see my RPM is 640, nice and steady.
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO!