Aircooled VW South Africa

Will it affect your performance and fuel economy if your distributor timing is wrong?
My rotor seems to be out by 45' ,instead of pointing to Nr1 it is pointing to Nr4 when on Tdc
Std 1600 twinport with a 34 pict3 carb and pancake airfiltet .

No effect at all, just change the firing order on the plug wires accordingly

Its been running like that since i got the motor.
Reason for asking is that your nr3 is supposed to have a retard but i your plug wires are on the wrong positions then nr3 plug wire wont have the retard anymore .
Hope this makes sense

Yup, with lots of experience on this, there is no effect at all.

I had issues with space and turning the distributor so eventually pulled the drive and put it back in the 'correct' place, but no performance change at all.

Marc

#3 only has the retarded timing in non-doghouse engines. i.e. if the oil cooler sits inside the fan housing and thus hot air is blown onto #3, then the dizzy has a 3deg retard.
I also ran it like that for years without issues. But the reality is that the dizzy doesnt get the correct amount of oil. These is a small port in the dizzy shaft that meets a hole in the case. You turn the dizzy and it gets less oil. As i said, I ran it for years without issues and so have many others, so I wouldnt stress

As Tony said, you could make a grove from that hole to the new position( with a lousy 2nd hand grinder, hey Sean ?) and the oil will find its way in, or you just have to oil the felt pad in you dizzy shaft (under the rotor) more oftern.

Herman