The timing that originally burnt up the brushes was set by Zero. My brother had never touched the bike, it managed 1500 miles like that. The timing when it burnt up a second time was set at neutral, it managed about 8 miles but the brushes were not much good that I had for testing. Having been unable to source parts at all for sure yet other than a promise of them in October sometime, maybe. I had it set to NO advance, for sure and was nursing the bike, all I was doing when it failed was trying to go from an intersection, it made it halfway across and died in the middle. I am assuming that NO advance is the safest setting for slow riding.
Cam