What is the pole piece on a 400 distributor?

[WH23G3G]

I'm almost finished retiming the distributor on my 400 so I can start it. The bronze bushing was still pressed in and looked ok but I installed a new oil pump shaft. It's in and parallel straight to the cam. Now I'm lowering the distributor by the 73 Dodge chassis service manual. It says to point the vacuum chamber pointing toward the center of the engine and lower the distributor in with the rotor pointing near to #1 on cap. I did that. But it says once the distributor is in place to turn the distributor clockwise so the reluctor is opposite the pole piece. How does that make sense? The reluctor is round. What are they talking about pole piece?

[maxwellwedge]

Maybe that last step is just to put a little advance in it. They must mean to line up the two "tats"...couldn't say the word I wanted to! If you have the engine at true TDC and aim the rotor at #1 you should be close enough to fire.

[WH23G3G]

The Haynes repair manual I also referred to says to rotate the distributor to #1 on the distributor cap once the distributor is installed. I assume they mean clockwise to get it right at #1 on the cap. It will be close already. I'm pretty sure I've got the engine at 0. I felt for compression and was feeling air coming out of #1 when I turned the crank. I went just a 1/4 turn past the 0 mark so I back it up. I hope that doesn't mess anything up. I was having to do it myself because I couldn't get anyone to help again. So I had to turn and then get up and check and do it until the mark on the damper was inline with the hole on the timing tab. I hope that hole in the tab was actually 0 because I couldn't any longer see the number 0 on there because of the water pump neck. But I'm pretty sure it is.

[maxwellwedge]

If you hear good noises on fire-up you will be ok! Lots of sucking noises and pops through the carb - not so much.     

[WH23G3G]

I almost wanna say there's no way I could've messed it up this time and I may not have had it wrong the first time. I was trying to orientate the plug wires on the cap the way the 73 electrical diagram had it laid out. The Dodge service manual wanted the vacuum advance pointing to the center of the engine. So I don't know if they meant pointing straight back or straight to the driver's side fender. But the distributor, because of the location of the vacuum advance only went straight towards the driver's fender, just like I've seen them in most pictures of stock Mopar blocks. I definitely had it on 0 on compression. I got the driveshaft for the oil pump perfectly parallel to the cam/crank. And I got the rotor lined up just as close possible to #1 on the distributor cap and then the distributor kinda fell in place since the slot had to also be pointing parallel. So when they say you could have it 180 degrees off, does that mean everything looks correct but you have it on the exhaust stroke? If I did all this right it's ready to attempt to crank. I'll see if it even cranks before we push it outside to start up. 

[71383bee]

Don't worry too much about the orientation of the dizzy.  You just need to make sure it is on the compression stroke for #1 and that the rotor is pointing directly at the #1 post.  You can turn it any way it darn well wants, but if the crank is at zero and your rotor is pointed directly at #1 it is set.  That's the cool thing about mopars...they are not like fords.  The factory likes it the VA near the valve cover because the motor almost always needs to be advanced so you turn Clockwise to do that.  With the VA up against the vc and the timing starting at 0 they would not be retarding the timing because it would hit the head.

As a trick I learned if you run out of adjustment just advance or retard the firing order by one post on the dizzy and re-time the motor.  Ity will give you some room to twist the dizzy again to adjust the timing.     

I like to set my initial fire up at 10 degrees advanced.  And then plug in the dizzy and be sure to start the firing order in a CCW direction from where the rotor points.

Do you have timing tape and/or a dial back light?  That helps alot. 

[WH23G3G]

No I just have a basic timing light that works pretty good for the amount I've used it. The correct timing on this 400 says 10 degrees BTC on the emissions sticker but in the 73 service manual it says 7.5 +/- 2.5 which turns out to be 10 degrees. So if it will start with what I've got in on I should be able to adjust to 10 BTC. I'm running all stock on this 400 so I'm relying on the original marks on the damper and timing cover. I had the damper inspected when I was rebuilding the engine and it looked like it was fairly new. The rubber didn't have any stress or cracks in it and it is a correct 73 cast damper.