racintang

I've playing this damn distributor for a while with no luck. I'm not changing any setups so I will just ignore those. I turn the car on and everything and let it warm up and I make an attempt to check the timingI hook it up to my trailing and I have centered with the second timing mark. I hook it up to every wire on the leading and I get nothing, no light. I switched the trailing and leading ignitor and it is the same. The ignitors are good because the tach worked on both the leading and trailing igniotors when I switched them. Could a coil be bad? My stratr up is real rough and have to hold the gas down to keep it going till' it warms up. Aceleration isn't the best and I think that could be inpart to me not being able to properly set the timing and poss. a carb adjustment. The dis' is from an 81-85. The ignitors run from the dis' to the coil and the coil back to the dis' and the dis' to the spark plugs. It seems to run better on this combo than any others I've tried. I'm using a 10.5mm magnecor spark plug wires. They will make custom setups for whatever you need. They said they can cut you a system for 3 coils and anything else you want. Incase anyones intreseted, I have their phone # somewhere.

LongDuck

Have you tried swapping the coils front to back? The Trailing coil is to the front of the car, with the Leading coil to the back. If you swap them and find that the car runs better when cold and starts better, it may indicate a bad coil.

The Leading spark plugs account for more of the timing issues than the trailing plugs - which are really only there to smooth the power delivery and provide more thorough fuel combustion. If your leading plugs are not firing strongly, or not timed correctly, you'll know it immediately.

You may also want to check your cold start mechanism on your carb (didn't say if SE, EFI). Holding the gas pedal down to keep it running sounds like an inoperative choke or something simple. Good luck, and post back.

racintang

Its a brand new RB carb and I tried another coil and it still ran like crap. I'm going to try moving around the dis' some to see if it will smooth out but the fact that I am getting no light on the leading still baffels me

racintang

I moved the dis' the the right about an inch and it ran so much better. The power curve is great and it revs faster. I still can't time it though. The trailing is now showing between the the 2 timing marks on the crank.

LongDuck

You should be timing to the Lead ignition on Rotor #1 (front). If you aim this for the red mark on your eccentric shaft, you'll see that the trailing timing will work itself out to be very close - usually not requiring any adjustment. If necessary, there are the 2 screws that hold the trailing advance system in place and you can slide in/out to change trailing timing.

This is all based on the Lead timing being set correctly, however. From your description, it sounds like you may have slipped a tooth when you installed the dizzy back into the engine. If you run out of adjustment room, you may have to remove, realign, and reinsert to try to get it on the right 'tooth' this time. HTH,

racintang

Even if it was off by a tooth. Shouldn't the timing light still flash when when it tried to trigger the spark plug. Even if you were by 45 degrees you should still at least get a flash of light. I get nothing except on the trailing side. I've tried L1, L2 and the coil

LongDuck

You should be getting a timing light flash for both leading and trailing ignition, or whichever you're not getting a flash for is, in fact, not firing.

The inductance loop for the timing light should be able to pick up the signal from either leading or trailing, regardless. Could this be pointing to a bad leading ignitor or possibly a bad connection in the cap/rotor?

You may want to search a bit on timing, as I have only ever done minor timing adjustments on my SE. There may be others who have more extensive experience and can help you track down the root cause based on the fact that you can't get a timing light flash on leading plug wires.

You should only need to time against Rotor #1, in the front. HTH,

racintang

My wire going from the positive side of the trailing to the positive side of the leading worked itself loose. Hooked it up and I was able to time once again. Yeaaa. What should I set it at now though. I have it at 0 degrees. I don't know if stock setting would be right.

RB - intake, carb and exhaust, no emissons, MSD coils, 10.5mm wires, no port, no turbo.

Whats your ideas on the setting?