What gap to I set my points at on a 79 RX7 12a?

 

It is best to set your points in the trash and a get distributor from the '80s without points.

Me saying this probably seem to be the opposite of helpful to you now. In the long run it would make you happier.

 

Agreed. But if you want to keep them, if for nothing other to to retune every 3-4k, the online FSM is in my sig.

 

If you want to swap I got 1 from an 82 I ll let go cheap PM me.

 

Would you happen to know any part #'s and were to find them. Put the new points in and had it running beautifully, then it started missing very bad and spitting black smoke. What the heck did I do to this thing?

 

I'm inclined to say you may have lost your leading ignitor, but the trailing only runs part time on the 79 so at idle, it would be dead with no fire at all. Check your cap and rotor, it's easy to get it misaligned and can chew up the contacts inside the cap.

Switching to the 80+ electronic ignition would be the best thing you could do. Not terribly hard to do.

On the other hand, the black smoke may indicate a carb issue and too much fuel, could be totally unrelated to swaping in new points.

 

Leading ignitor? On a '79 with points? I'm confused...

Rich

 

To 64mbd. The leading ignitor would be the condensor for the leading plugs. Each set of plugs has a condensor. One leading and one trailing. Probably should have replaced them too. Unfortunately, Autozone did not have the condensors at the time. I will probably be replacing them as well as the points distributor setup.

 

That was a booboo. You should have seen how much time I spent trying to find ignitors on the 1st 79 I worked on.

 

LOL

 

HUH??? This thread is really confusing me...I must be an old fart! I'm assuming you meant "64mgb" and not "64mbd", but I don't know where the condensor talk came from! A condensor is not an ignitor!

Rich

 

Yeah, I have some bonehead days now and then.

If the condensor is dead, no fire to the plugs. I always liked the ones that failed when hot, but worked fine when cold. It's been way too long since I've had to deal with point and condensor ignition systems. Electronic is the only way to go anymore.

 

I know what you mean about the boneheaded days...I have them WAY too often.

I agree about going electronic...I even did the swap on my 99% original '79. Although I'd probably still have the points (just for the originality) if the bearings in the points baseplate hadn't worn so bad. It was impossible to set the dwell angle.

Rich