Noise's are line colors, there's a million of them. Hard enough to
diagnose when you're standing there with the engine right in
front of you let alone with it a thousand miles away.
There's no timing chain on a six banger, just the two gears.
Setting the ignition timing in correctly could make make the engine
run more sluggishly or cause precognition, i.e., ping, but the
would show up mostly when you accelerate.
It would be very difficult even for an experienced mechanic to
tell if the timing were off by '1' degree, and that certainly wouldn't
make much of a difference in the way the engine ran. Sounds like
you might be on the receiving end of some BS. Suggest finding
another mechanic and get a second opinion.
dg
