Date:         Tue, 05 Sep 95 13:41:37 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Nick Pace <nickpace@rand.org>
Subject:      VW-'71 BUS-QUESTIONS ABOUT DIFFERENCES IN CYLINDER TIMING

I just put one of those chrome pulleys with the degrees marked all the way
around on my '71 Bus when I did a long block swap.  I used a timing light
to adjust my supposedly stock distributor (with vaccum advance and retard)
on cylinder number one.  Just for kicks, I put the strobe on each of the
other three splark plug leads.  Much to my surprise, plugs 2, 3, and 4
were actually firing about with about 5 degrees of retard compared to
number one.  In other words, if #1 was set to 0 degrees TDC, the others
were firing at 5 degrees ATDC.  Is this normal and just something I've
never noticed with the stock pully?  Could it be due to the fact that this
is a new long block and that I've screwed up the distributor insertion?
Could there be something wrong with the distributor or with the cap?
Could this be a reason why my new engine is running hot?

Thanks for any insight.


Nick