having a little trouble with delaying an explosion..i think you go to the creation tab and set the frame there but is there something else you must do? thanks a lot

If you used the shelf tools to create the explosion, then you will also have to offset all the animation channels used to control the explosion as well.

With the explosion shelf preset, there is:
- Gas Released parameter on the Pyro Solver DOP
- Scale Source Volume parameter on the Source Volume DOP

thanks a million jeff, this works a treat