I go her fixed!!! It turned out to be a distributor problem. A few months back, I had removed the distributor. At the time I only had a Haynes manual. Due to it's condenced nature and unclear discriptions, I didn't understand, from reading the manual, that there was any difference in an impulse sender and a hall effect switch. The descriptions kind of ran together with illustrations on different pages. The manual made mention of 'air gap adjustment' and gave a value. Looking in my distributor, it seemed that my air gap was far too large. Long story shortened, I took it appart and a spring shot out into the garage, which I never found. i bought a rebuilt distributor . I gave the retailer my bosch dist. number, which ended in 003. He sold me one that ended in 001, all numbers were the same ex 001 ending. When I call and questioned anbout the difference, he told me the 003 was obsolete and the 001 was interchangeable. I took him on his word, after all it's his buisness to know. As well, I had seen the Hall Switch for either sold as, fits 001 and 003, so I didn't question. The two looked exactlty the same, I even took the new one apart to make sure.
At the time I was doing some other extensive(to me) repairs and upon completion, the aformentioned problem arose. When I got the car, it had been sitting and the tires were out of round, so I couldn't get over 45 without feeling like I was about to be flying off the road. Anyway, all the repairs done, couldn't break 65mph. In a previous thread I coresponded with Mr. Art Benstein at lenght about ignition problems. Art had told me to be sure to line the rotor up with the notch in the distributor body. Every time I tried to do this, the timing would be so far off the I couldn't twist the dist. body far enough to compensate. I useualy wound up around 25-30 deg btdc. I could get to 10-12deg but only from turning the rotor a little counterclockwise from the notch in the dist. body. I rationalized this was/possible somehow?.?.?.
Over the next few months I collected 5-6 burnt rotors and caps, and assumed there was a problem with my ICU. Got a different ICU, but same problem. Finally, I found someone with a b23f that would let me try their dist. in my car. I put it in and the problem was worse, now only 55 mph. Then I realized that I had put it in the way the old dist. forced me. I took it back out and aligned the rotor with the notch in the dist. body. The next thing I know, I am flying down the highway going 85mph and my Volvo seemed happy about it! In fact it felt like there was more where that came from, but the last thing I need is a ticket.
So I started calling around and asking questions and as it turned out, the part swaping Volvo mech here in town had some intresting info for me. He told me that the dist. ending in 001 is the b21 dist. and 003 is the b23 dist. He said that I was probably experiencing a lack of advance and the rotor would spin past the tower before spark, hence all of the burnt rotors and caps. He told me that the mechanical weight in the two is the only difference, otherwise they look exactly alike and have the same hall switch in them. So there it is. I was given erronious information by a auto parts dealer and have suffered for taking his word instead of listening to my gut. Although, in defence of my ignorance, I bought a stack of green manuals on ebay. I have one for my engine and it has charts showing timing advance curves, and lists the bosch distributors for the various engines but for the b23f it didn't specify to which bosch dist. I should have. This may be due to the fact that the manual was printed in the early 80's . Anyway, I've finaly got this thing straightend out. I'm sure I will have more questions in no time, but in the mean time, Thank You for all of your time and energy. I feel kind of special when I think of all of theknowlegable people, spread out all over, who have been trying to help me with this. I can't find the words to express my appreciation, except by saying Thank You. Kenneth