Points Gap, dwell & timing?

[tryan]

do you have to swap out the springs and weights to maintain the 's' advance curve?

[pwd72s]

As anybody who has talked with Jeff Gamroth knows, he doesn't waste time on "chit chat", but he did say that the curve would be right for my car. Don't know how he plans on doing it. Will give a report, my opinions, when it's all over with. But, RS distributor? I wouldn't think the curve would be much different from an "S" to begin with. Gamroth's shop, ROTHSPORT, has a great reputation up here. I managed to get "in" because Gordon, a good early car mechanic here, switched to ROTHSPORT. The majority of their work is with race cars. So, I feel fortunate to be able to get in this time of the year. Jeff estimates the job will take them only a couple of hours, probably why they had the time to squeeze me in. Check out the car on page 120 of the June issue of EXCELLENCE..it's a Gamroth creation. That's Jeff "testing" the car through the festival turns of PIR...top photo page 123.

[sithot]

So what's he using; Pertronix? Looks like they are fairly popular as are Crane and MSD. It appears that the Pertronix works with the stock CD box (or perhaps a Permatune). It's all Greek to me.
I've been fooling with points for so long I'm sick of them. I'm up for a change too.

[pwd72s]

Really guys, I'll let everybody know what I think when it's all over..

[Rufblackbird]

Paul,
I had this done to my '76 when it did the same thing a few years back. The tach was jumping up and down, and all of a sudden I heard a loud POP and the car died. Couldn't start it for the longest time, but after 30 minutes it started again. I researched it and asked the question on the Pelican BBS and was told it was my points. So I said screw that, I will not have that happening again (embarassing too) so I bought the Crane XR-7 (something like that) optical ignition. Worked wonderfully, and never had problems like that, nor points to adjust. It came with its own little control box. I say go for it!

[pwd72s]

What can I say? I feel kind of honored, because Jeff Gamroth himself did the install. And he said he likes the leather smell of my car!
Anyway, RS distributor, pertronix unit. Zero problems with the curve...I was able, on my way home to test redline in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. (don't ask where). The little 2.4 pulled well to each, right up to the rev limiter with the tach needle right where it was supposed to be throughout. Rock steady tach. I still have my original "backwards points" distributor. But if anyone needs a new distributor, I wouldn't hesitate to suggest this change. If anything, the car feels stronger. Perhaps because of the no wear in the new dizzy? Of course, this is based only on the 80 mile drive back home. I'll be adding another 200 miles or so to the odo this coming weekend, but I don't expect things to change much. Hope to see some of you in the R Gruppe corral at the Portland "Hysterics"... Original phreaks? A tip for disguising the Pertronix...Jeff covered the red wire with a black sleeve. Sharp eyes could tell all isn't stock, but what the heck, I've already added carrera tensioners...

[sithot]

You 'da man! I'm really excited to hear about this. Bye-bye points, hello new millennium. Isn't technology wonderful?
I'd love to talk to your guy about one of these setups. No problems with a new distributor either. In for a penny, in for a pound.

[tryan]

does the motor have a little flat spot at 3k ish that you always see on the hp vs rpm graphs?


edit... determined by the butt dyno.

[pwd72s]

Tryan, like I said butt dyno only...but no "flat spot"...just a good steady pull to the 5,000 mark, then the additional "boost" given by the S cams. Wanna drag? If you have a "flat spot" at 3,000, I'd ask if you're running a sport or other aftermarket exhaust? That can cause a flat spot with MFI cars. Sithot, that's really all there is to it...a 2.7 RS distributor with Pertronix...all else in the car remained the same. Instead of hooking the red wire to the + terminal of the coil as the Pertronix instructions say to, Jeff hooked it to the most rearward post of the bottom fuse of the bank of fuses most rearward in the engine compartment. (Hope this makes sense. ) Entire job took under two hours, including the waiting time for the engine to cool. Any reasonably good P-car wrench should be able to do it. Jeff just installed the new dizzy, wired the pertronix in, set timing...done. Sure admired his home made dizzy wrench tho. A cut down 6" 3/8 extension, the socket end cut off...welded to it, a 13mm closed end from a combo wrench...about 3" of the handle, then another cut & weld to give another 1" or so at a 90 degree angle. Allowed him to use it both by hand, then plug in a ratchet for the final snug. When I commented about it, he laughed, said he'd made it about 20 years ago.

[jayzoll]

If any of you are considering making this change your self, you should know that Pertronix's instructions do not work for cars equipped with a CD box. Instead of connecting the leads from the trigger to the coil terminals (as per the instructions), you need to connect the red lead to any good 12V source (like the switched fuse in the engine compartment) and the black lead to the black wire that was attached to the points (the lead from the CD box).

I had the stock distributor in my '73 S rebuilt with the Pertronix trigger and then spent several hours rewiring and resetting the static timing because the car wouldn't fire with the leads wired according to Pertronix's instructions. I finally got it right after a desparate telephone call to Henry Schmidt at Supertech (www.supertechperformance.com), who was able to test a spare set up that he had and tell me what I was doing wrong.

Henry, by the way, is a great guy who does some beautiful rebuilding and fabricating work (see attached photo), and offers a variety of high-quality products and services at very reasonable prices.