THe PO had put on a carb and changed the distributor since he said that was needed for the carb. The installed distributor has no vacuum advance port but does advance timing so evidently has a mechanical advance.

Any ideas what the differences in distributors might be? I have the original FI one and if I can't get the engine running smoothly, may install that one instead.

the advance curve is normally different....the only decent FI distributor to be used with carbs is the one from a 1.8

if you have a 1.7/2.0, I wouldn't bother

what is the timing at idle and then at 3000rpms?

if you plan on keeping the car long term, a new Mallory Unilite with mechanical advance is nice...you can use it with carbs, with the 1.8 L-jet and aftermarket fuel injection (can also be used with D-Jet with modifications)

Thanks for the reply. Makes sense about the timing advance curve. I need to re-time the engine since I mis-read the Pelican artical on "timing with carbs" and set the advance to 34 degrees BTDC at about 2000 RPM (the lowest I could get it to idle) instead of at 3200RPM.