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Basically I was starting with a clean slate, as the original ignition timing was taken care of by a mechanical distributor ('optimised' for the original 1.8l engine). I started out with a safe table of values based on generic timing for such an engine, with similar bore size, compression, combustion chamber shape etc.
From that point on, I'm trying to find the advance values which give the best power for a given amount of fuel burned, and I can get close on the road (avoiding knocking being the most important aspect so far). I have a knock sensor to plug into the stereo when I find a suitable amplifier. After this, I have a half-baked idea of integrating a load cell into an engine mount in order get it just so. Not sure how this will pan out.
Max advance is about the same as the old distributor, at about 33 degrees btdc, but static timing is higher (from 5deg previously to 10deg now), and the load-related advance is actually much gentler now, which is avoiding some of the early pinking I had with the original set-up. I haven't even begun setting the inlet air temp and coolant temp advance/retard features yet, which should give some decent FE gains during warm-up, and in the wintertime especially.
Getting the fuelling set up correctly will, I imagine, be a completely different kettle of fish. I want an EGT sensor fitted before I even think about tuning for an HAI.
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