About a year ago, I measured carefully and added a notch to my pulley for
what should be 5 degrees BTDC on my '85 with about 50K miles at the time.
Bearing in mind Boston Bob's early dyno let down with his big valve engine, I
will only say the engine seems to pull stronger from a stop and seems to run
stronger through the full RPM range.  On a recent road trip from Houston to
Corpus Christi (dead flat roads with nothing resembling a hill) I managed to
get 20 MPG out of an automatic Wolfsburg Westy.  Aside from a slightly
elevated (but very smooth) idle speed I haven't noticed any side effects that
would indicate any engine life shortening conditions -- no pinging,
backfiring, etc..  The ability to better keep up with traffic may result in a
slightly reduced engine life.

Chuck
'85 Wolfsburg Westy - 'Roland the Road Buffalo'

In a message dated 1/29/02 11:10:08 PM, LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM writes:

<< Date:    Tue, 29 Jan 2002 23:49:03 EST
From:    JordanVw@AOL.COM
Subject: anyone with a 1.9L wbx advanced the timing????  as a performance mod?

has anyone out there with a '83-'85 1.9L wbx vanagon advanced the timing as a
performance mod?   what are the performance results?  does this lessen the
life of the engine?  what was the HP upgrade?
any BTDT let me know....
considering doing this to my 1.9L wbx w/ 80k mi but dont want to lessen the
life of the engine..
chris >>