Hi Dennis,

I did say that it was a 1.9, but this particular engine is wearing the
1987 2.1L digifant cooling, FI and exhaust setup. There is no vacuum can
on my distributor. The mechanical advance distributor is used with the
83-85 digijet setup.

Greg

On 5/27/2010 10:14 PM, Dennis Haynes wrote:
> On the Digifant, the ECU has absolutely nothing to do with spark advance.
> Problem is in the distributor. The distributor has mechanical (centrifugal),
> advance, and vacuum advance and retard.
>
> Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Greg Potts
> Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 5:36 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Digifant timing/tuning help needed
>
> Hi Volks,
>
> My 1.9L digifant engine has been sluggish ever since I put it into the
> bus back in September. It doesn't seem to make much power unless I wind
> it out to 2.5K rpm or so. Fuel economy is nothing great either; I am
> only getting 14MPG on a typical tank.
>
> Compression is good. (Around 150 on all 4 cylinders last time I checked)
> Distributor is only 1 year old, as are wires, cap, rotor and plugs. If I
> pull a plug wire off the distributor the idle staggers no matter which
> plug wire I remove (ie, no weak link).
>
> Coolant temp sensor was replaced, it didn't help. O2 sensor is
> disconnected until I get a new one; It's pretty much undriveable with
> the O2 sensor connected. Throttle position sensor is working.
>
> So tonight I checked the timing. 5 degrees BTDC at 2K RPM with coolant
> sensor disconnected. It's spot on at 2K rpm but as the revs increase the
> timing stays rock steady at 5 degrees BTDC.
>
> According to http://www.oldvolkshome.com/ignition.htm the timing should
> advance to 35 BTDC at 3K RPM....
>
> I have tried swapping the ECU and AFM with good spare parts and it makes
> no difference whatsoever.
>
> Am I doing something wrong, is the ECU broken or am I reading more into
> the oldvolkshome specs than I should?