MS3 Extra Wont advance

[PeterBulbick]

The car is a 6 cylinder jaguar 4.2XK engine it has distributed spark with a cam sensor inside the distributor. The distributor has had its centrifugal advance fixed in position. The cam sensor is a single tooth aligned as per the manual, with a VR pickup. The main trigger wheel is on the crank and is 36 – 1 tooth with a VR sensor also. The angle of the missing tooth is 80 deg BTDC as per the manual.
The engine will only run well when the trigger angle is set at 40 deg which seems odd as it should be around 80. When I try to fix the advance in the software the advance seen on the timing light is always the same 20 deg regardless of the number I enter into the fixed advance box. If I change the trigger angle to 80 deg on the software the engine will run badly at about 20 atdc and sill no matter what advance setting I put in it will not advance or retard the firing. I have tried physically moving the distributor to different angles but this also doesn’t change anything. I have also tried running it in single trigger wheel mode batch fired and still I cannot adjust the advance.
I am using a VW golf MK3 ignition coil with built in ignition amplifier on spark channel A on the msextra.
Please help I have been trying for days to get this correct and have to fit this system to 2 more cars when I have perfected it.

[billr]

[PeterBulbick]

Sorted it, turned out that there was a miscommunication with the wiring and spark a from the ms3 board was wired and not the spark a from the extra board. I guess that the main board automatically defaults to a set spark advance when it’s not being used