distributor tuning

810 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by matty, Apr 3, 2001

Discussion Starter · #1 · Apr 2, 2001

I'm trying to get about 35 degrees total advance with an initial advance of 12 to 15 degrees. But my stock distributor has 13L and 15L positions in the reluctor arm (which I switched to 13L for a little more initial advance). Setting it at 12 degrees initial advance - which the engine seems to like a lot - puts the total advance at about 39 degrees (it should be 38 with the 13L reluctor slot). And I get a ping. For now I'm dropping the initial advance back until I get no ping at max advance. The Crane distributor tuning kit wont help since it doesn't have any way to reduce the total advance.

So what do you do to get less total advance? I don't see reluctor arms listed in any catalogs - is there a place to buy 'em? Am I going to have to go with an aftermarket distributor? I was thinking I could slip a very short piece of hose over the reluctor arm stop making the range of movement smaller and decreasing the total advance.

Thanks!

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matty

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Joined Mar 6, 2001

300 Posts

#8 · Apr 3, 2001

I have found from experience that the reluctor arms are not accurate. Eg. 13L X 2 + 15 intial should =41 degrees. I have curved three similar distributors in the past year and only one of the three were accurate. The other two were close to 50 degrees after checking with a timing light. I added epoxy to the arm stop to drop the advance to 36-38. Next time I'll try rubber vacuum hose on the stop.

'68 Coupe, 289, C4, 3.40 gears, GT-40P heads, TCI Streetfighter stall convertor.