"Scratches are random," Theo said. "This one is exactly 12 degrees from factory, the same on every cylinder. You don't scratch the same number six times by accident. You cut it because you mean it."
He flipped the notebook open with one greasy thumb and held it up. On the page, in faded pencil, was a number: 12 degrees advanced.
The crowd leaned in. The number on the page matched the mark on the metal exactly.
"Anyone can write a number," Boyd said. "It proves nothing."
So Theo proved it. He clipped the timing light to a plug wire and asked Nathan to bump the engine over. In the strobe flash, the timing mark jumped into view, glowing, frozen in the light. It sat nowhere near the factory notch; it landed dead on the hand-cut line, 12 degrees advanced, exactly where the notebook said it should be. The flashing light did not lie, and forty experts watched it tell the truth.
A low sound moved through the garage—the sound of forty experts realizing a teenager had just read an engine like a book they had never been given.
Walter Hayes nodded slowly from his stool. "He's right. I wondered why your readings looked so strange. You were measuring a custom engine against a factory chart. Every correction you made took it further from the truth."
Nathan Reed glanced at the countdown: thirteen minutes. He turned the screen toward the crowd; nobody was laughing now.
That was the first reveal: the timing was never broken, it was misunderstood. But understanding the timing was not the same as knowing why the car had died.
Theo moved to the second mystery. He leaned deep into the engine bay and ran two fingers along the camshaft housing, eyes closed, feeling instead of looking. The crowd watched him search for something none of them could see.
Then he stopped. "Here," he said. "Bring a light."