Inductive pickup with FAST?

[TURBOZ]

When I sent my fast back to have it setup for an inductive/megnetic pickup they told me setup #1cylinder 50 degrees before top dead on compression stroke. Then drop the distributor in so its pointing at #1. Just looking at it the ignition looks like it would spark #1 with 50 degrees of timing As soon as the distributor passes #1 terminal on the rotor it sparks. So wouldnt that not be with 50 degrees of advance?
They also told me to make sure the timing in the program matches the balancer and it does but this 50 before top dead is a bit confusing? I would think it should be set at 0 then drop the distributor in?

 

[10SV6]

By setting your crank reference angle to 50 degrees in C-com you're telling the FAST box to be expecting a signal from the reluctor and pickup of the distributor 50 degrees before TDC and base timing calculations from there. With the extra time between the 50 degrees and whatever you have in your timing map the the FAST box will sit and wait to send a signal to your MSD box or whatever you have, at the right time to fire the plug when you want it to (from the timing map), then the ignition box will fire off the coil - the electricity will pass from the coil through the coil wire to the top of the distributor cap to the rotor, arc across a gap between the rotor and plug wire terminal in the cap and head down the plug wire to the plug.

The postion of the rotor to the cap is known as phase. It's the reluctor (the wheel with pointers inside the distributor at the bottom and the pickup that send the signal to the FAST box. The cap and rotor only need to line up when you want the spark to pass. If anything you want the distributor dropped in with the motor at 50 TDC with the reluctor and pickup lined up, the rotor shouldn't have quite gotten to the #1 terminal on the cap. You want the rotor and terminal to be lined up where you're going to have your timing under peak load. Without having a phaseable rotor you can try a tooth forward or back to see where you get the best alignment (rotor to cap terminal). You've got 90 degrees of crank rotation between cap terminals with a V8.

The distributor doesn't actually fire the spark. It tells the FAST when its passing whatever the number in the crank reference angle is.

You understand ?