Ok, so I have decided that the timing on my M1009 seems about perfect when its on the cold advance. Any suggestions on how far to turn it to acheive that much? I have had it more advanced before, but it sounded like a come-a-part when it was cold, so I backed it up some. I am guessing that I may have been closer to what it should be when it was set there, and I should probably just let it warm up enough to kick the advance off before I drive it. Any suggestions?

My suggestion is to advance the timing one line width to the drivers' side and leave it alone. You really won't achieve much by advancing the timing, except a little more grunt but this comes in the form of slightly higher exhaust temp. Advancing the timing is usually a practice on higher mileage engines that have sufficient miles on them to need to advance the timing because of the timing set stretch.

Don't worry about letting the engine warm up. One of the worst things for any engine is excessive idle. Mainly crank it up, let it idle just long enough for the glow plugs to quit cycling and to know you have full oil pressure. Then drive it easy until the cold advance is off and the engine is fully warmed up.

I have a manual switch on my cold advance. I shut it off after about 100 yards when it is cold.