96 5.7L OBD2. Timing is supposed to be 21 degrees. My Equus 3130 scanner reads -23. I assume that is retarded. I hooked it to a 99 4.3L engine and it read without the minus. Complete and accurate information seems to hard to come by. Would this be the computer or is there something controlling the computer to set it this way?

 

The spec is 0 +or -2

 

That's the cam retard, not the timing. The timing is 21 degrees but my question was why is this meter reading -23 degrees, not what is the timing.

 

Think I found my answer. While replacing the timing chain and manifold gasket, the battery went dead. It sat for about two months with a dead battery. When I finally got it running the distributor was 180 degrees out due to poor timing chain replacement information for this motor. I got a crankshaft distributor correlation code when I started it. I unhooked the computer again to erase the code when I got the engine together correctly. Apparently I need to do a crankshaft variation relearn.