Hi all,

Heres something I have been wondering for a while, but something came up during the week that made me ask this question....

I feel that the 009 in my 1200 has caused what little performance the engine had to turn to poo-formance...read on and see if you can help/suggest anything....

I understand that the mechanical advance only style dissys have their place in the VW world - particularly in engines with BIG cams that have an unstable vacuum signal at lower revs, but are they really the best alternative in standard (or near standard) engines?

My reason for asking this question is: I used to run an original style (big) dissy in my 1200 powered '63 bug. It worked fine, but the points eventually required replacement. Upon enquiring about replacement parts I was told to 'stop mucking about with that shi...er...rubbish and stick an 009 in it' (to quote my brother, who works as a VW mechanic). I just happened to have a second hand 009 in a collection of stuff that I had been given by a friend after he sold his VW collection, so I fitted it with a new set of points and a new condensor and dropped it into my 1200.

Yep - it runs, but it just doesn't seem to have the same torque as it did when it had the vac advance dissy in it - not that 1200's have a lot of torque - which is just my point - when you have very little power/torque, any loss is noticed.

Initially I thought that it was just my perception so I left the 009 in the car. I still wondered just how good it was, but it ran reliably so ...if it aint broke....

During the week, a friend of mine (and fellow forum member) reinstalled his 1200 in his car and had a few minor problems getting it to run reliably (another story), during the fault finding process (done verbally, over the counter whilst I was making pizzas at work) he mentioned that his engine seemed to be lacking something - ever since fitting the 009....hmmmm - sound familliar?

Has anyone else noticed this? I feel that the smaller engines really suffer when they don't have the vacuum advance as they appear to rely on the changes in load (and manifold vacuum) to change the advance and therefore generate the torque that you REALLY need in the 1200/1300 engines.

I would be interested to hear what others have done in regards to this problem (no - I'm not interested in upgrading the size of the engine, so don't even suggest it!) Is converting back to a mechanical and vacuum dissy the best way to go? Any particular model work better? Could I mod the 009 to give me better performance or should I just bin it?

Oh yeah, I should mention that I have tried a couple of different 009's in this car recently with no major change, so I don't believe that the 009 is faulty.

...or should I be looking somewhere else for the problem? Everything is adjusted to specs and the car is capable of sitting on 120km/h for hours (as long as there are no hills!) so I feel that the engine is in good shape, but it just doesn't feel right....

OK, over to you - any suggestions greatfully recieved.

R

PS: The car is still 6V and will be staying that way - if it was 12V it would have had my EFI/engine management system installed long ago which does allow for spark maps to be changed, and it also takes into account engine load when calculating the spark timing....

Agree - 009's on stock engines lose the vacuum advance at low revs, thus (usually) losing a percentage of low end torque - this would be doubly more noticable in a 1200.

First things first, did you time the 009 at full advance with a strobe, or statically? 009s cant be timed reliably statically as the quality of 009 dizzys variers considerably and you can get anything from 15 - 25* advance. Despite what people say, they are nowhere near as good as the stock dizzy on a stock engine.
Its kind of a catch 22 with a mech adv dizzy, to advance the timing, the revs need to increase, but for the revs to increase the timing needs to be advanced, hence the bad flat spots people encounter with 009s.

Time it to around 28-30* BTDC TOTAL advance at 3000rpm first and see how that goes, dont worry about the timing at idle as this is far less important than the timing at full advance. usually it'll fall around 7-10* BTDC tho, mark that point on the pully and you can time it statically from there on.

Really tho if you have the choice between a stock dizzy and a 009...

GO HERE

http://www.cal-look.com/index2.html 

and under the technical page is a good artical describing the different types of dizzies avaliable for all VW's
and their apropriate aplications.
Cheers Nige

You've answered your own question. Ditch the 009.

I agree, ditch the 009, I have removed both from my stock VW engines and gone back to Vac advance after a few years of trying to get 009's to work well in my application.
Brett

009 works well in mine, but it's a 1600 with twin dells

Thanks for your replys everyone!

You have all confirmed what I thought was the case - It is most likely that I would be better off with a standard dissy in place of the 009.

I think that the most interesting point here is what Chewy said:

once you have gone to a svda dizzy, you wont go back. drivability ++++++++++

I run a 009 on a 1600 with bugspray carby.static timed to 10 degree advanced.Some adjusting of the idle was needed but seems to go ok.Doesn't ping and flat spot was removed by tuning the carby in.

Hay ross just get rid of that facken 1200 and put a type 4 in problem solvered yeah yeah i know shut up you idiot

Would one sugest a oo9 or stock dizzy on a 1500 single port.

I noticed a very similar decline in performance of my 40hp in my old bug when a 009 was fitted - along with the dreaded flat spot. I did go back to the stock dizzy and was amazed at how much better it ran and accelerated.

I say 009 on stock engine (esp 1200) = poo-formance

On a 1500, I would be tempted to still stay with stock dizzy as well - if timed effectively there is no reason why the vac advance dizzy (stock) will be holding the "performance" of the 1500 back.

Hmm interesting thoughts here.
It is a common thing for legions of engine tuners/mechanics to add extra advance as some engines seem to respond well.
However, with the F-Vees, (1200cc) we find that advancing the ignition anything beyond 30Deg (total) altho making the engine idle very smoothly, simply kills mid range torque and high revs. I made a fundamental tuning error in my Vee which uses a Scat twin point dizzy where i re-set points thaqt had closed up down to 0.014" back to 0.020" and neglected to re-set the timing. needless to say the engine was a pig and I was being hosed by cars that i knew i could blow by easily. No amount of jetting or fiddling helped and as i had already set the timing (previous to altering the points dwell) on the morning of the race day, I never reconsidered that.........fewl!
it turned out to have about 36Deg of ignition and that was enough to simply kill the engine. It did idle very smoothly tho.............

To get them to make good midrange and top end power we retard the ignition, usually to 28Deg. @3000rpm. Much less than this results in them pulling a tree again.
The 1220 engines are surprisingly touchy to ignition advance but regardless of where the ignition is set, the very low down power remains pretty much unchanged Ie: not much!!

As suggested before, the total ignition advance may be waaay over 30 Deg and this seems to kill any mid-range punch which is the type of power you tend to "feel" (and miss)!

Try the timing light at 3000rpm option first before dismissing the mechanical advance distributers first.
L8tr
E

I've got a 009 in my 1600.. I will be replacing the 009 with stock dizzy, as I have noticed that there is some hesitation and it does flat spot now and then...

I have a 009 on my 36hp, 1500sp, 1600tp, and 2 1916's........................no probs. Although the best setup is always the factory one. !

BTY.
I used a 009 before the Scat twin point and another mechanical dizzy before that in my 2 vees and have never had a drama with flatspotting, at any RPM apart from dead cold as we remove the choke assemblies from the carbs.
L8tr
E

OK Volks,

I have spent a couple of hours over the last couple of days experimenting with my collection of dissys and this is what I have found:

Firstly, I checked the timing of my 009 that was already fitted. I had statically timed it in the past to the left hand side of the 'block' in the centre of the crankcase. Never checked the advance at revs. I used my flashy new timing light to see what the full advance figure was - exactly 30 deg! What a fluke!

I then advanced the timing (at revs) to 34 deg - couldn't really feel any difference around town, but once over 90km/h (our local stretch of freeway is 110km/h) the engine felt rough and lacked power. I did notice that the snap on/off when changing the throttle position was greatly reduced - perhaps this was a very minor flatspot?

I then created a vac only dissy from a collection of old dissys and fitted it to the car. I statically timed the ignition to the same place as I had done initially with the 009 (which is 7 deg for those of you who are interested) and turned the key. The engine ran incredibly smoothly at idle! Upon driving the car, it appeared to have plenty of power around town...except at full throttle. I wanted to take it out onto the freeway and give it a test, but unfortunatly the wiring to the condensor broke off as I was heading towards the freeway and I had to bodge it back together just to get home. I did notice (before the wiring broke) that the engine seamed to lack in its 'engine braking' capability - ie: it didn't slow down as fast....

Next I located a vac and mechanical advance dissy - one with both a vac advance and retard. It was complete and even the vac part was working. I fitted it and statically timed the ignition the same as mentioned above. The engine definatly ran smoother at idle than when the 009 was fitted, but was rougher than the vac only dissy. Around town the engine pulled strongly (as strong as a 1200 can :duh), and the change from on to off the throttle was smooth, unlike the 009. Once on the freeway I was faced with a headwind, however the engine happly pushed the car beyond the 110km/h speed limit and was still climbing when I backed off. It felt smooth and I feel drives much better than the 009.

Suffice to say that the 009 has ended up in my box of used dissys and the vac/mech dissy is still fitted.

There is one more dissy that I would like to try (one day) - a scat/mallory mech advance only dissy. It's missing the points, rotor button and cap, but I'm sure that this can all be found. Don't know if it would be any better than the vac/mech dissy that is fitted now, but it would still be interesting.

Just an interesting side note: Whilst I was doing all this experimenting I mentioned to my Brother (who works as a VW mechanic here on the Gold Coast) what my intensions were...not sure if he had had a bad day, but he told me in no uncertain terms (this is the editied, 'PG' version) that I was wasting my time with a dissy that uses a vac advance mech as it is very hard to find a working second hand unit and new ones are a crazy price here in Australia. He also said that if I was to go ahead with my time wasting experiment, then publish the results on the internet that I should make a point of saying that a working 009 will out perform any incorrectly operating vac/mech dissy....I doubt that any of you are that stupid that you would think otherwise, but there it is Dave, just for you!

(My Brother doen't own a computer so therefore will never see this, so feel free to say what you like about him! )

So, after all that, is that what you expected to see?

Does anyone know where you can get a reasonably priced NEW vac/mech dissy? Are replacement vac units available for the vactory fitted units?

R

Good read Ratty
What you have determined here is what the F-Vee fraternity have known for about 40 years now is that the 1200cc stock engine is surprisingly touchy to ignition advance and the old fashioned thinking of "just wind her up a couple of degrees on stock" is just a red herring.

Secondly, Mallory/Scat dizzy parts are very common and quite cheap and available at just about any speed shop.
There are only 1 set of points and 1 rotor button for pretty much the entire range of points dizzies and there are only about 3 variations of dizzy cap for 4 cylinder dizzies.
I built mine with all the bits off the shelf here in Hobart.

An advantage of the Scat/Mallory is that you can alter your initial advance and centrifugal spring tensions for smoothest low down running and progression without affecting you maximum advance setting for higher speed running.

The Scat made the biggest difference to my Vee.

L8tr
E

Great read and info Ross.

I have a 009 in my twin port 1600 and a vac/mech advance in the boot which I am going to try aswell so it will be interesting to see if the same things happens .

Marc

my single port 1600 has a 009 and it was horrendous when i bought the thing. so far out of tune it wasnt funny but after rebuilding the carby and tuning it all nice and resetting points and doing timing it runs pretty well with no flat spot. however ive never had a different dissy on this engine before so i cant compare. my 1600 twin port engine runs great with its stock dissy but ive never had a 009 on it.

I was there when ross and dave where talking about this and ross you sugar coated that big time i think dave just says chuck a 009 in and be done with it cause i dont think he would intend on driving one for more than a work test run, you know what he's like it a type 4 or its a paper weight, good way to be really

I don't think anyone has mentioned compression ratios yet

i can t speak from experience just yet, but i have a 009 on my t4, with compufire dis-ix electronic ignition.

i have been told that an 050 is a better fit for my engine, and one day (cars not done yet) i would like to change the two over and compare.

i also have a msd billet, but thats another story (or engine....



..... just wait a few years)

...heres a giggle for you....

...in passing conversation last week my brother mentioned that he will be removing the 009 in his Baja (2.1 litre Type IV with FI) and replacing it with a vac/mech dissy because the 009 is causing the engine to ping and flat spot.... I still have the teeth marks in my tongue from biting it so that I didn't give him a serve after what he said to me...!

R

i got a 009 and a 30 pict on my 1600tp and i run a 009 on my 2Lt4 powered bug and have never had a problem