Dana Burt's Journal

It was a race club setting in Portland Oregon. I owned a shop called Freeway Fiat. As a matter of course I got a request from a club member who had a Fiat powered sport racer. He wanted me to check out the tuning of his 1800 cc motor. I found that at 2500 rpm the advance was 5 degrees retarded. After I set it I told him that he needed to roll on the throttle from low rpm's so as not to get valve clatter. He acted accordingly and then reported that my tuning had cut a second off of his lap time. We had agreed that payment for my tuning his motor would be my getting some lap time in the car.
Even with his expressed satisfaction with my tuning he refused to meet his end of the bargain. The fellow claimed that the car was old and finicky and so he couldn't trust me to treat it right. I then gave him a bill for my work which he refused to pay. Then, I cut loose the distributor lock bolt and set it somewhere out of site. He never did so well again.