have a reman electronic distributer on a small block, checked shaftplay after 2k miles by hand, can touch pickup with relucter with little pressure, book says 1 pound, pickup plate seems to move pretty easily,flexing spring like.Question is is it worth trying to make this setup work better or just buy a 2 wire hei distributer set it and forget it , problem with set up now it breaks up evan in nuetral giving gas ,misses, plugs look ok clean ,wires are good, thinking relucter is changing gap and possibly touching at times, rotor has carbon trail at top of pointer not at tip, swapping motor out soon just want to get ignition good to avoid issues with new motor, motor now is 273 with cam and 4barrel, new motor 318 magnum cammed with 4 barrel. thanks everyone for opinions
new distributer pro's con's
- Thread starter mikec
- Start date
-
KitCarlson
Well-Known Member
I bought re manufactured Cardone distributor as a core. It was like rebuild involved tying to rope, and dragging it in a desert behind a truck. The drive tang was under sized, so the drive had horrible slop, reluctor was beat up. A total waste of $.
Might check if reluctor is indexed properly, it varies with SB vs BB, due to rotation direction. Your description suggests phasing is off. Reluctor is flipped, consult manual. Seen some not marked too.
Might check if reluctor is indexed properly, it varies with SB vs BB, due to rotation direction. Your description suggests phasing is off. Reluctor is flipped, consult manual. Seen some not marked too.
Last edited:
AJ/FormS
68 Formua-S fastback clone 367/A833/GVod/3.55s
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 24,952
- Reaction score
- 12,303
My electronic dizzy is circa 1971. It runs just fine with a gap around .014. Motor goes to 7200 and beyond. My theory is that when the shaft gets up to speed it doesn't care about an extra bit of side play.End-play is another story.
-More important is sensor polarity. If you hook it up backwards and get the base timing set, then it will run like crap. Put the timing lite on it and observe the mark, as you gently raise the rpm to in the range of 1200 to 2000rpm. If the timing lite cannot maintain a steady pulse or the mark starts dancing all around or even shows retard, then the pick-up polarity is backwards.Either reverse it or get a different pick-up with a different colored , colored wire.I have seen a gray one with black, and also an Orange one with black.
-If the timing lite is steady, and the mark behaves itself, then polarity is NOT the issue. Then I would suspect rotor phasing. But first open up the reluctor-gap, and remove the vacuum advance hose; Then try again.
-If you still have breakup at under 3000, the next to check is rotor phasing.As the mechanical advance comes in, the rotor moves around under the towers. If it gets too far away from the proper tower, it can and will fire to the next tower. When this happens the engine starts bucking and farting.
-More important is sensor polarity. If you hook it up backwards and get the base timing set, then it will run like crap. Put the timing lite on it and observe the mark, as you gently raise the rpm to in the range of 1200 to 2000rpm. If the timing lite cannot maintain a steady pulse or the mark starts dancing all around or even shows retard, then the pick-up polarity is backwards.Either reverse it or get a different pick-up with a different colored , colored wire.I have seen a gray one with black, and also an Orange one with black.
-If the timing lite is steady, and the mark behaves itself, then polarity is NOT the issue. Then I would suspect rotor phasing. But first open up the reluctor-gap, and remove the vacuum advance hose; Then try again.
-If you still have breakup at under 3000, the next to check is rotor phasing.As the mechanical advance comes in, the rotor moves around under the towers. If it gets too far away from the proper tower, it can and will fire to the next tower. When this happens the engine starts bucking and farting.
Last edited:
polarity check is ok ,brought a spark plug to work to show a coworker, said it looked very lean, changed primary jet and meter rod for 1 1/2 stages richer on cruise and power, set initial timming to 16, idle to 800 ran motor to 2500rpm, 34-36 degrees . Car runs very good no breking up, a slight hesitation on mashing throttle but i can live with that, probably carb issue of too lean , and timing was way too advanced. thanks for the info, always learning,would of thought it was all distributer, but turns out fuel and timing. Now about torque converers................lol
-
