yup, it all makes sense now too because I have an old 1986 boat with a 350 chevy engine that originally had points. I upgraded it to the 9 pin distributor system as that's what was on the newer boats and indeed that's how the engine gets its advance is through the 8 pin module. The boat is carbureted and that 4 pin plug for controlling timing is not used on the boat either, but the timing does indeed advance on its own on the boat and I remember when I installed it having to plug the jumper into the 4 pin hookup to bypass the advance to set the initial timing according to the boat manufacturer. SO, I tried the same jumper trick on the car and that stopped the advancing, But like I said, you cant just leave the jumper plugged up because it wont start with it hooked up all the time. SO, I got the 4 pin and will be switching it over.