OK more strangness
 

so is there a reason when I try to set ing timing I have to use the rear rotor wires? all my manuals say to use the first rotor, but when I do I cant see the timing marks from advance till stall or retard till stall? is thee a silly explanation. I can get the car to run ok but it just doesn't seem right.

oh and everything works when I use the rear rotors wires.... like I assume it should any way, just with the wrong wires.

First try to reset the timing on the motor. Pull the dizzy out, line up the leading timing mark on the pulley with the little pin in the front cover and line up the little dot and line on the dizzy gear, and re-insert it. Then try again. I also recommend re-marking the timing marks on the pulley to make them easier to see if you want to.

If that doesn't get you anywhere, are you sure you have spark to the front rotor? That should be obvious since the light won't be putting out any strobe without it.

Huh? Unless you've got some inside information on this situation, this is certainly not called for. I hope I'm not offending you, but the OP deserves to know this.

If you don't have any reason to believe that the distributor has been tampered with (as in pulled out and repositioned), then leave it alone...

If you are not getting a signal from your leading plug wire, then that probably means that nothing is happening there.

First, try switching plug wires and see if that changes things. If so, then replace the wires.

If that doesn't change anything, then swap the plugs.

If that doesn't change anything, then inspect the cap and rotor.

Good luck. :)

P.S. Oh yeah, and make sure that the plug wires are running to the correct plugs. The cap should have markings, and on the motor top is trailing and front is #1.


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no, no, the frt rotor plugs do flash the timing light, and the car makes ok power (aka it is firing), but when the frt rotor flashes on the ft pully you cant see the timeing marks at all no mater how far you turn it, but when I use the rear rotor I can set timing off that, like I would expect it should be doing whe hooked up to the frt rotor.

I agree with Funk73 that your distributor is probably on incorrectly. Make sure and reset your ENGINE to TDC (check archives or faq on how to do this) and then restab distributor.

sound like a plan, seems odd that everything lines up when using the rear rotor.

That makes me think it could be as simple as improper firing order.

i'm thinking the same thing. the dizzy is timed to the rear rotor. but it should run the same regardless which rotor it's timed to.

Sounds to me like your front pulley is just mounted 180 degrees out. Possible on an FB since there's no indexing once the pulley is removed.

Rear rotor fires 180 degrees out from the front.

Oh, and the dizzy is timed to e-shaft rotation, not rotor rotation. Rotors rotate at 1/3 e-shaft speed, remember. Firing timing is based on e-shaft lobe position.

damn, didn't even think the could just be off 180.

think I will make a mark 180 from the tdc and see if it matches up to the ft rotor, before I pull the distributor. if that is the case I will just turn the pulley 180.

I think that L1 is actually running off the trailing ignition...

Both leading plugs fire at the same time. So, if one of them is firing at some other time then it is being controlled by something else, and there aren't that any suspects available.....

:scratch: SRSLY?

Not on my dizzy, they don't. Go look at your cap and rotor, sir.

L1 and L2 contacts are 90 degrees apart on the dizzy cap, the Lead firing arms are 180 degrees apart on the rotor, and the dizzy runs at 1/2 e-shaft rpms... so the possible firing positions of L1 and L2 are 180 e-shaft degrees apart. There is no physical way for that cap and rotor to fire both lead plugs simultaneously.

Maybe the DLI-TRI-DFIDIDSSISSIS peeps fire both leads at once, but a stock 1st-gen engine does not.

when i read that i was like, what? then had to go back to the original post to see and it didn't mention what yr he had. but his profile has 82 so when i first read his post i assumed he was talking bout a 1st gen. so no they don't fire at the same time.

lol, I guess it's been too long since I've stared at a stock ignition system. :)
Thanks for correcting my error...

a quicky way to make sure the dizzys in right is you could turn the motor over to the leading mark on the pully with the pin and pull your cap off...... the arrow on the rotor should either point directly towards the driver or will after one more full rotation of the engine.

But that's assuming the pulley is on correctly, yes?

Better start at the beginning, with the writeup in the Archives that tells you how to verify TDC by looking at the flywheel through that access port...

basically if the flat spot on the flywheel is on the exhaust side on the motor when LTDC the pulley is on correct. It may be hard to see it thru the plate behind the header so you can take of the top plate find the flat section of the flywheel and just turn it from there to the exhaust side. if the pulley is off at all your know......

after market flywheel. ;)

Uh oh... :(

I will figure it out, its not high on the things to due list as the car seems to run ok regardless. happy to see Im not the only person scratching there head. will update when I figure it out.

oh...... well it gets interesting from here. lol