28* initial timing for a 318? How can that be?

Mattax said
That's a good analysis and I think sums up the challenges of what they were trying to do given their situation.
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@92b Totally agree one could go through many permutations but fortunately we don't have to. We can generally find a baseline developed for something the same, or at least similar.

As far as 'thought experiment' that's where I've observed people get into trouble. Just 'cause we think something is going to behave a certain way, doesn't mean it will.
However, there are several pretty well developed computer engine simulation programs. I have Dynomation 5, which is now a bit old, but still a decent one although it has limitations. Anyway at one time I tried to change the rod crank to see if it had any effect on the 'best' timing and it didn't. However IIRC I was using the Fill Empty model. Perhaps if I used the wave modeling, that would have taken into account the piston dwell time. So maybe Dynomation 5, and more likely its replacement can model that. The limitation may have been the user (me).

Agree. I was thinking the thought experiment would be more for the design of the test and not so much predicting the results.
That being said I re-watched the engine masters test ( thanks @TT5.9mag for the link) and their question was more about the power difference. But they did sweep each rod combination for timing. There was a lot of behind the scenes work that was done to do this test. Probably no test is ever perfect but in my opinion it was well thought out and custom tailored for the format of the show.
I like to look at a test like that from the perspective of if I had to do the test what would be all the steps I would have to take to complete the test. I wonder how many man hours, including the building of the two short blocks when into that 25 minute show?