[PeteD]

With lots of advice from you folks, I just completed switching my carbed 1.8 back to the stock 205AA distributor and away from the 009. I timed it "by ear" and went for a drive. What a difference all that extra advance and a the retarding under load makes!

I have been fiddling with the timing by turning the dizzy, driving, seeing how I like it, and repeating. This is not very scientific. I would like to just set it to 35deg at 3400RPM, but for the life of me, I cannot find a single timing mark on the my fan. (Perhaps the AC pulley moves the fan just enough that little/no timing mark is visible. {I am not using the AC, don't even have a belt on it, but that is another story}). If I just had one timing mark, I could easily measure over and mark other spots. SO, HERE IS THE QUESTION: does anyone know how far over in millimeters or inches the TDC mark, or any other mark for that matter, from the left of the wide part of the fan is on a 1.8 fan? To clarify... The fan has lots of thin blades and a few wider sections that connect the front and back of the fan. Since I can tell when I am near TDC by looking at the distributor, if I just knew where the TDc mark should be in relation to the left edge of the wide section nearest TDC, I could figure it all out from there. (My plan is to actually paint the fan blades different colors and make a table of the degrees for each blade, then interperlate as necessary when setting the timing.)

(I have an old fan off a 1.7L but understand the markings on it are different than on the 1.8. If someone can authoritatively confirm that the TDC points for the two fans are the same, I could work off of that 1.7 fan (which holds open the back door to my garage on warm days).

PS: yes, I read the Pelican Tech Article on timing which is excellent, but does not cover carbs.

Many thanks and happy holidays!