retard timing mechanically?

Just adapt a double sided vac advance diaphragm to your distributor. When pressure is applied to one side it will retard the timing.

Did just that, worked fairly well. 4cyl turbo volvos have a vac advance boost retard canister on the distributor.

What I did was cut the arm off the mopar advance can and weld it to the arm of the volvo can.
One interesting thing though, the volvo can that I found at the local yard had 2 vac ports on it. You would think that one would be fore boost and the other would be for vacuum....NOT true, the top one is for both vac and boost. The lower one is vac only

One issue is that the alignment tab for the distributor cap is on the vac canister and the volvo unit doesn't have one, SO, you have to add one in the correct place or the cap can move around.