Ignition timing is another trick to deal with in the ECU.

The distributor has a capability to be advanced electronically by the ECU. The ECU has a timing advance map in it just like the fuel map. There's a base timing setting which you control mechanically. With a programmable ECU you can modify the map. Without one all you can do is retard the distributor a bit through mechanical means which has the effect of not changing the shape of the timing map but pulls say, 4 degrees of timing out of the whole thing.