Ignition Timing Then and Now

[McNeon@domain.elided]

Recently I took my trusty Duetto to the new dynamometer shop here in 
Nashville. My car has standard (not Veloce) cams and an otherwise completely 
stock engine with good compression. What an eye-opener! 

I wasn't prepared to see that maximum flywheel output was a paltry 75 
horsepower! The good news was that the torque curve was as flat as Kansas 
(that's very flat).

The timing was set at 40 degrees BTDC, per the specifications Alfa published 
with the car many years ago. At the suggestion of the dyno guys, we started 
backing down the timing, and voila - there was the power I'd been missing. 

With a final timing figure of 28 degrees BTDC, the power reached a much more 
acceptable figure of 96 at the flywheel with a very broad peak around 6,000 
rpm. Despite the published spec of 125 h.p., the dyno shop guys felt that the 
96 h.p. number was probably reasonable for a 1.6 liter engine in 1966. 

Can anyone tell me why Alfa would publish a timing spec that was so totally 
out of kilter? Was 40 degrees BTDC a reasonable timing setting in 1966, and 
if so, why?

Bob McKeown
Nashville, TN

P.S.: I've always heard that horsepower numbers from the sixties were totally 
bogus. The dyno boys told me about Mustang club members who left the dyno 
disheartened after finding that their "390 h.p." big block engines only put 
out a real 220-230 h.p.

------------------------------