Thread: Distributor installation

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NTFDAY,
That is probably right, but I commute frequently to a place where the on ramp to I-95 is unusually short under a bridge and to get into the right lane I routinely have to wind up my little Sunfire to about 4500 and sometimes higher. With the low first gear in my R700 in the '29 I might occasionally get past 5000, but you are correct that 6500 is past where I probably ever will go with my very mild cam. I will leave the 8000 rpm coil to Mark Martin who needs the extra rpm! Probably those NASCAR rides turn 9000 or more at times but 6500 does seem ridiculous to me unless I rev the engine in the garage just to see how high the tach will go and it is limited to 8000 anyway. So this is just chit chat but I was really pleased that after a fair amount of frustration I got a distributor which finally went into the hole!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I don't think that you'll have to get much past 3500 with the 29 to be able to merge into traffic with little effort. It's great that you were finally able to find a distributor that suited your needs. I look forward to the day you finally get the 29 on the road.

NTFDAY,
Just a quick reply. "Rick" at Its-a-Snap says he knows of no problem with their tach (which I have) and the Petronix kit but he recommends a Delco coil. Today on the way home I had the usual tricky business merging into I-95 at that spot in Richmond with a very short on-ramp and today my Sunfire went briefly to 6200 rpm in low gear before it shifted so I think I need to keep the 6500 rpm range in mind for the '29. It is surprising to me there are not accidents at that site because if you do not make it into the right lane I-95 goes under an overpass of U.S. Route 1/301 with no room on the shoulder under the bridge. You have to merge somehow or else be squashed into the side of the bridge piers. In the past I took no notice of the tach, but it is surprising the little Sunfire revs so high and the red zone is at 6500 rpm. The little 2.2 L Sunfire 4-cyl is by no means a "quick car" but apparently the first gear is low enough to allow high revs if you need it. Of course it is getting annoying to not have the '29 on the road yet but having a distributor makes it seem closer to that day with an easy way to pre-lube the engine before the first startup. I have invested in Joe Gibbs break in oil but I will still need to pull the distributor to pre-lube it just before startup.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Well the Petronix kit arrived yesterday along with some wiring looms and today I messed with the installation. There is always some fly in the ointment so today I went through the installation steps and found that my centrifugal weight plate is not quite flat (it is "remanufactured" not new) so that the Petronix magnet ring runs up and down more than the 0.060" tolerance so I shimmed the bottom of the shaft with the washer that came for that purpose and I "hope" I reinstalled the gear pin without rotating the gear 180 degrees and I will have to mess with the little shim washers between the magnetic ring and the rotor cap. The instructions say to use the same number of shim washers on each side of the rotor cap but that would not help me because the plate holding the rotor is not level so I guess I will mess with shimming just one side. I am writing this to correct a comment I made above about the interchangeabiliy of the rotor cap screws. Upon close examination the cap has one round pin and a square pin on the other underside of the rotor so you can really only install the rotor one way, but now I have to worry if I reinstalled the gear 180 off? Anyway I am creeping forward somehow. I also purchased the Flamethrower coil recommended by Petronix in the hope of matching the correct coil as specified in the kit, we shall see how it works!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

If you're 180* out it will try to fire but will backfire through the carb, not good. Just bring #1 to TDC and check the position of the rotor in reference to #1 cylinder and go from there. Also, do not use a cheap rotor and cap as they have poor dialectic strength and will cross fire in a short period of time.

NTFDAY, Thanks for the further hint. I now have the stock rotor cap so I wonder where to get a performance rotor which will handle the 40,000 volts of the Flamethrower coil. Gee I bought the Flamethrower coil so that it would be compatible with the Pertronix kit. Today I discovered a small set of mini feeler gauge blades with a hole in one end that I can clip off and make whatever thickness shim wasers I need to keep the magnetic rotor nearly level. The small washers that come with the kit are supposed to be 0.032" thick but they are too thick for my situation. Using the end of the small feeler gauge blades with the hole I can make shim washers of known thickness and at $4.75 for the set that is a cheap way to get precision in the shims. I chatted briefly with the Tech guy at Pertronix and he said the rotor will work in the range of 0.010" to 0.070" but with the feeler gauge blade tips used as shim washers I should be able to get it spaced out to 0.030" all the way around the ring. He also said the warranty on the Pertronix kit will be voided if the ring touches the ignitor receiver so the 0.010" clearance is the absolute minimum. I thought maybe the path through the magnetic fields determined the dwell time of the spark but he said it is only a trigger and the kit should work out to a gap of 0.070". As usual this is turning out to be more complicated that if I had just bought a new distributor and I now know the points-type base can go into my block past the firewall but I now have almost as much money in the distributor as a new one but I will keep on trying to get it right. If I get a backfire through the carb I will certainly scrap this troublesome dizzy and just get a new one!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

If memory serves me right there is an adjustment when the unit is installed. DO NOT set it with steel feeler gauges, instead use brass as they are non magnetic. Pretonix, if still the same, is based on a hall effect transistor circuit and steel gauges could damage the circuitry.
Most auto parts stores carry a cheap cap and rotor set as well as a heavy duty set or you could go to Summit and order one from them.

I bet that MSD Ready To Run dist looks good now

(sorry - I JUST had to say it)

IC2, I had to creep up on the price since I did not know if the point-distributor base would fit; NOW I know it will (just barely!). Just for the record I will have to disassemble the kit since the only way the distributer will get around the edge-lip of the firewall at the top is if the rotor cap is off and that means I will probably have to remove the magnet ring when I put it in the motor but I know how to do that now! Going the other way I could have wasted more money on the smallest 3 5/8" diameter Mallory dual point setup and then had a rpm limit; still it is good to hear from you, the next time you visit Midlothian please stop in and help with a wire or two. Since I am working mornings to pay for the anticipated top and upholstery I am wiring at a rate of about 1 wire/month! I have spent at least two weeks messing with this distributor thing. Anyway, I have a lot of good suggestions from NTFDAY and today I found some small brass washers at Home Depot (after trying three electrical suppliers in the nearby Hanover Air Park Industrial site!) and put two No. 8 brass washers under the rotor bolts and a single small No. 6 brass washer under the bottom of one of the cap bolts. Now I have a fairly smooth path with a gap of about 0.035+/-0.005" all around within the tolerance of 0.010"-0.060". The washer for the bottom of the shaft took most of the slack out of the worn thrust bushing at the bottom of the gear. Assuming (?) I got the gear back on the correct way I am pretty pleased with the result. I had to remove the pin through the gear to add the new thrust washer and I think it goes through the center of the shaft with no offset????? Thanks NTFDAY! I have been to conferences where the Hall Effect was the subject of discussion but I was fooled by the steel color of the washers that came with the kit, maybe they are aluminum because they scratch silvery; anyway they were too thick and now I have thin brass washers which are better.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder