"Race distributor". No ADVANCE?

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Shainesboostin

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Ok, just got my first Mopar! Super excited. It's just a 318 with a cam/headers/carb. My dad came over, said it still has stock ignition. Points and all. (I've never worked on anything pre 1990. So I'm lost. Anyways, he bought me a msd box, coil, and a mopar distributor that's been modded I guess, and has no mechanical advance? Can someone fill me in what this means. Also, posted on FB about it and a few said I should just get a HEI distributor.

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Depending on compression ratio, starting could be hard with a locked advance at 34-36 degrees. On my race car we lock it at 36. To get it to start we have to "fool it". We have a separate ignition switch so we can spin the engine before hitting the spark.
 
Mini starter might help, but you will also be missing out on the advantage of haveing vacuum advance at cruise....helps with mpg
 
First question should be; Do you really want to race this car at all, or just drive it on the street and have fun?

Without a mechanical (and vacuum) advance you give up ANY form of economy in the car.
 
Ok cool, do you think a HEI setup would have been a better choice? Sorry all the queations. Guy just basically told me it was stupid to run this.
 
BigBlockMopar said:
First question should be; Do you really want to race this car at all, or just drive it on the street and have fun?

Without a mechanical (and vacuum) advance you give up ANY form of economy in the car.
Click to expand...
Well, it is a 318. So, no its no race car. But will just cruise it/beat up on it occasionally. I plan on a sprayed mag swap soon.
 
An engine needs a specific ignition timing at specific rpm's.
Locking out the timing at 36 degrees means the engine won't properly burn the mixture at anything other than high rpm wide-open-throttle.

Looking ahead on your already planned engine swap... I understand you're a young guy and this is your first 'old' car, but 'spraying' an engine without knowing how the basics work, can get you a lot of scrapped engine parts very quickly.
 
BigBlockMopar said:
An engine needs a specific ignition timing at specific rpm's.
Locking out the timing at 36 degrees means the engine won't properly burn the mixture at anything other than high rpm wide-open-throttle.

Looking ahead on your already planned engine swap... I understand you're a young guy and this is your first 'old' car, but 'spraying' an engine without knowing how the basics work, can get you a lot of scrapped engine parts very quickly.
Click to expand...


No no, I understand that. I've had sprayed boosted cars. Lol, but with coil packs, and software to tune/pull timing, watch afrs, ect. Hence I'm asking questions. This is new to me only in the sense of how it's controlled. For instance my big turbo car we ramped timing to peak tq. Pulled all timing to launch. Ect. I don't know with a setup like this how this is all accomplished. Obviously I'm not gonna have it advanced with spray that far.
 
Thanks everyone. Looks like I'll be looking around for a distributor WITH mechanical advance.
 
The MSD dizzy in question has mechanical advance. Someone just locked it down. Easy to revert it, and bushings are available so you can set timing in the low teens and have full advance when you need it.
Do a quick google search on the model number and the lockdown feature. I'm sure anywhere, like summit will have the bushings you might need for your timing needs.
Being a 318, it will make a little improvement over points.
 
It's actually a mopar performance distributor, someone modded it if you will and removed the advance. Here's a pic.

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Ah, I missed that then. If it can be locked out, it should be able to be reverted. Anything is better than messing with points.
 
the vacuum advance has been removed, it may still have the mechanical advance. hold the lower shaft and see if the rotor can be moved back and forth some
 
Marcohotrod said:
the vacuum advance has been removed, it may still have the mechanical advance. hold the lower shaft and see if the rotor can be moved back and forth some
Click to expand...

That's what I was going to mention, that the mechanical advance assembly is under that top plate where the pickup coil is.
Holding the bottom end of the shaft and turning the rotor end back and forth should result in about 1/4 inch of play and then spring back when you let go.
 
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