- engine damage.  lacking variable timing, all you have is mixture to protect your engine from harm.  With fixed timing it's clear what to do (e.g. if you take APS).  With some unknown timing curve in an electronic ignition box, I don't know what to do.  I asked Klaus what his timing curve was really and he just blew me off.   Lacking that information, I wasn't willing to have his box in my airplane.

Colyn,

 

Electro Air's timing is published in the CAFE Reports and a display is available.

 

Light Speed has an optional display of the timing. I have one installed and often report the timing along with other power parameters.  The more experimentally minded can also modify the timing with the addition of a pair of potentiometers.

 

Pmag/Emag does not display timing data nor provide information about the timing.

 

Slick's LASAR is the best example of secret timing - so secret you cannot find out why the magneto mode works better than the LASAR in certain circumstances.  LASAR was to be the best of both worlds, EI failures revert to a magneto.  Too bad their EI engineering was so bad.

 

Read Pauls L's indictment of magnetos.  I still don't know why some think mags are so infallible considering all the weak points (no pun intended) inherent in them.

 

PRISM is what some of us from the old mainframe software business would call vaporware.