Charlie..
The source code for any and all chips we write will always be available for anyone interested.. I fully intend to make sure this takes place. The neighbor has made his own subsystem internet streaming audio through a wireless system he built using pic chips. If he can do that, he says there is no reason he can't solve all of our problems and have us operating a commercial quality product with full software support! He proposed making a new timer board with new features also, similar to what we now have using the Micro-c compiler we now use to edit and compile the hex for programming. He's got so much equipment, it fills 2 of his 20x20 ft bedrooms! Programming is his speciality.. He designs embedded op systems for industry HVAC. The guy is like Einstein..I mentioned what I built and he already made improvements to it without even seeing the board! There'll be a version with switchable direct hall input for mechanical advance folks, and another standard timing board controlled ignition advance..He made one circuit last night and it works better than mine!
Hopefully this weekend I'll get together with him on the software glitch on the new timer. Thinking about all he said, it's a protection/filtering problem. The pic is being triggered by impulses in the regulator that we are using..the 78l05..needs alot of filtering to provide ripple free power before and after the trigger takes place so the pic runs at a constant frequency.. Made perfect sense to me! 2 tenths of a volt difference can change the freq. beyond tolerances designed to be used internal to the chip..Didn't give that much thought before, since I wasn't involved in the original design. Using internal speed of 4 mhz is better than 16 mhz external according to his theories. That's why the older timer worked better than the newest one. Who am I to argue that point? Always open for suggestions.

The control software that accesses the bootloader he says is fine, only changing a few internal values in the pic tables. All this should lead us to a better timer board. He also looked at my RCexl cdi and said it's a simple foolproof design, but draws way too much current at high speed..
His dad was a real electronic genius and I flew at my club field with him for years before he passed on.. Must have passed on the genius to the son.. he's just what we needed and always works for free!

John