Are the timing marks on the left of TDC or O/T on the harmonic balancer the BTDC(before top dead center) and the marks on the right ATDC(after top dead center)? I pulled some quotes from other posts that are confusing me. My rotor(82 Euro S) spins clockwise so moving the distributor clockwise retards the timing and moving it CCW advances the timing. If I am at 14 degrees BTDC and I want to go to 18 BTDC I retard it by moving distrib clockwise to move it further to the left of the O/T mark right? The quotes I saw are"The 23 means the ignition fires when the piston is 23 degrees BEFORE top dead center. If you move the distributor 8 degree counter clockwise it will move the timing to 31 degrees before top dead center." This is wrong, correct. This step would move the timing to 15 degrees BTDC which would move it left to right towards O/T on the balancer,correct?

 

Looking at the balancer, marks on the right side are BEFORE TDC, marks to the left are AFTER TDC. The crank rotates clockwise looking from tthe front, so the marks on the right get to the pointer before the ones on the left.

 

Thanks Doc, that helps so very much. I will make the changes and see what happens. I had it set to 18 degrees ATDC then. Gunar