Hey Jay,

My prior motor had weird symptoms, perhaps related to yours.

I could only get it to run right with the distributor twisted almost
all the way to the end of its travel.  Looking at pictures in bently
and other folks vans on the web clearly showed that my distributor
was at a weird angle.   I suspect that it had been installed with the
gear pointed in the wrong direction.   A side effect of this was (I
think) that because the whole thing was at the wrong angle, the spark
was jumping inside the distributor cap, and it ended up burning out
the ECU.       My timing (based on the timing mark) was normal,
however, so this could be totally different than your issues.

A new engine solved my problem. :D

On Aug 17, 2007, at 3:11 PM, Jay Brown wrote:

> I recently replaced the distributor on my '85 Westy (stock 1.9L)
> since my
> old one had a broken connector where the Hall unit connects.  I got
> the van
> started and timed it by ear before reaching for the timing gun.
> The van
> will barely run at 5 degrees ATDC (sounds kinda like a sick Harley)
> and
> won't smooth out and run without stumbling until about 12-15
> degrees ATDC.
>
> Thinking something was wrong with my timing gun I took the van for
> a spin
> and everything seems great at the 14 degrees ATDC setting.  Good
> acceleration, no backfiring on deceleration, running at normal
> temps at
> highway speed and around town.  I decided to borrow a friends
> timing gun to
> double check things and I get the exact same readings.
>
> I am stumped, what could make my timing be so far from stock?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jay Brown
> '85 Westfalia
> '72 Riviera
> http://www.geocities.com/vwcamper72