tune up gap settign question.

[billschroeder5842]

Hey!

My '69 is running a bit rough and I'm going to give it a minor tune up today. Plugs, Cap and rotor as the car hesitates when I goose it hard at about 70mph when the car is turning 3200 rpm. It should not do that.

I popped a plug an found a uniform dark tan color, very dry and one could say almost rusty in appearance. I'm not sure what that means....Huh...

Questions....The car has an electric distributor, so what is the correct gap between the distributor shaft and the magnetic pick ups? I figures as long as I'm in there i might as well reset the gap.

I have an Eddy (Hate that carb) so I'll mess with the rich and the lean. Any pointers?

My timing light is on the fritz, so any way to do a good "old school" setting without one? I have a vacuum gauge and it pulls a very steady 16.5 (there is a small cam installed).

BTW... 383, small cam, headers, aluminum intake...

Thanks guys!

[Ghoste]

The Mopar spec for the reluctor/pickup gap is .008, I'm not sure if it is different for other brands.

[johnnyseville]

The Mopar spec for the reluctor/pickup gap is .008, I'm not sure if it is different for other brands.

When you set the gap make sure you use a non magnetic feeler gauge set, otherwise the gap will not be accurate.

[Ghoste]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the brass feeler guage is very important. What Johnny said.

[Cooter]

A tune up is usually a good place to start, however, a Hesitation at that RPM could be a fuel delivery issue as well. Like maybe a float setting too lean?

Dry, "brown" plugs is usually a good sign. It's when they are wet and BLACK is when your too rich.

[billschroeder5842]

Different tangent....

When I put things back together I made the adjustment on the distributor using the .008 as a guide. When I started the car, it ran super poorly, and was making a muffled, clatter that moved with the rpm. I popped off the distributor cap and found that the pick up "fell into" the distributor shaft and was rubbing and bouncing off the lobes. There were metal shaving all over the place.

Duh.

Fortunately O'Reillys auto parts had a stock distributor handy and a quick swap made the car purr again. It appears to be a rebuilt (not my preference but I was not in a position to have a choice) with stock settings and a stock vacuum advance.

Question....When i was dialing it in, my initial timing seems to "feel" right at at 20-22 which is up from 18 from the "old distributor." This seems a bit much. The car runs well, but my thought is that it could actually stand a bit more (). Could a different Dizzy have 4-7 degrees difference?

When does one know they have "over timed" the car?

[Cooter]

All this is assuming your balancer hasn't Migrated....[Moved].

I've seen where different distributors have been "rebuilt" and have the reluctor ring set on the wrong dowl pin hole causing a timing problem. Not saying that is your case, but I've seen it.

[HPP]

Rusty brown look on the plugs may be fuel additives with the crap gas we have now days. I've noticed that in my street engines but not in my race engines that still run high test leaded fuel.

Setting the timing by ear...rotate the distributor until you get your highest idle then rotate the dizzy back a couple-few degrees.

If the timing it has feels right and you don't get cruise detonation, then your combo may want more timing than originally thought.