Advantages of spark+fuel vs fuel only?

[Gary Derian]

The Mura SV I worked on way back in the 70's sure seemed to have fixed
timing.  It had 2 distributors mounted horizontally as you described.  I
disassembled them to diagnose an ignition problem and found no advance
mechanism.  I later tried this on my Cosworth Vega with good results.  On
the Cosworth, I used 32 degrees fixed.  Never had a pinging problem and it
ran much better.  I am not claiming that this is an optimum solution, but
lots of cam makes an engine need lots of low speed advance.

Gary Derian <gderian at cybergate.net>

From: Carter Hendricks <carterh at crl.com>

>At 08:04 AM 3/23/98 -0500, Gary Derian wrote:
>>With lots of cam, the engine can take lots of low speed advance, to the
>>point that fixed mechanical timing works well.  Old Lamborghini's had
fixed
>>timing.
>
>Not on purpose. In fact the 400's had a nice long smooth advance
>curve from a pair of very intricate [expesive!] distributors, which were
>then unfortunately mounted on their sides, which caused them to wear,
>seize, and  become fixed. Didn't help matters: pinging at low speeds,
>power way down.  Properly overhauled distributors brought back the
>Lamborghini's amazing flexibility: smooth pull of power from off idle
>to max revs, all the way up in top gear.
>
>                                                        --Carter