a question of timing
 

Have just got my motor up and running with ms2 and I wanted to set the trigger angle. I couldn't find a TDC mark on the crank pully but I dropped the dipstick in the no1 sparkplug hole and found TDC then marked it on the pully (did it twice to be sure).

Then set the timing to fixed advance and 0 degrees. Got the timing light at idle and turned the cam sensor until the timing was on TDC. All seemed well but now I'm a little confused.

Setting timing back to 10 degrees advance (still fixed advance) the engine barely runs and sounds like the spark is pretty retarded. Can advance it through to about 25 degrees for a smooth idle and all the way on to 40 degrees before it starts to struggle. These numbers sound way too advanced and make me think I've made a mistake somewhere. Can anyone confirm if they are too advanced or if they are plausible numbers.

For the record the maps are just the ones automatically generated by ms2 based on my engine parameters. Have tried using ign table and while it is an improvement it still runs smoother with the spark advanced manually.