What is the difference of the ignition timing advance and retard?
Ignition timing is setting the point at which the sparkplug
fires relative to where the piston is in the cylinder. The highest
point the piston can go is called top dead center, or TDC. Timing
is set for a number of degrees of crankshaft rotation BEFORE TDC;
the number of degrees is determined by the factory, and since it's
setting the plug to fire before TDC, it's called the "timing
advance". If you set the timing to be closer to TDC than the
factory setting, you're reducing the advance, or "retarding" the
ignition timing. If you set it to be farther from TDC, you're
"advancing" the timing. Changing the timing can dramatically change
a motor's power and efficiency. The reason you set the timing
before TDC is that you want the exploding gas to be compressed by
the upward-moving piston and force the piston back down, generating
power. If you retarded the ignition so far that the plug fired
after TDC, the piston would already be moving down when the gas
exploded and you'd waste most of the energy from the explosion.