Re: Specific case of rotor phase

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

The aliens commander decided "John Hofstetter" <hofs@domain.elided> would
make a perfect specimen for dissection, and he yelled...

>I feel that I should point out that the exaggerated cases of the rotor
>being out of phase, that I have seen, have been caused by putting the
>plug wires in order into the cap, but not having them in the correct
>position. For example, the #1 wire may be in the cap hole intended for
>#4. This kind of error means that the rotor is somewhere in the cap
>where the spark can't get most directly to the inner terminal of the
>wire that is supposed to be getting the spark.

John,

I've thought about this situation a lot while writing an article about
rotor phasing for the Binder Bulletin some time ago.  Correct me if I'm
wrong, but if you were to simply shift the plug wires over by one terminal
(keeping the firing order correct), in order to get the engine to even run,
you'd have to compensate by rotating the distributor body to get the timing
back to spec.  Assuming the vacuum advance wouldn't hit the water pump or
intake manifold (thus preventing enough movement), rotating the distributor
would completely negate the effect of shifting the plug wires in the first
place.  That is, once you rotated the distributor to compensate for moving
the plug wires, you'd be right back exactly where you started from with
exactly the same rotor phase, etc.  This is because the problem is not with
the plug wires, but with the relationship between the cap terminals and the
rotor tip.  What am I missing here?

>It seems to me that this is what may have happened in the case of the
>Pertronix vs. points that we have been discussing. It sounded as if
>the Pertronix was firing maybe as much as 30 degrees off of where it
>should have been firing, and at low speed the spark was getting to the
>wire it needed to get to, (among others probably) but at higher speeds
>it wasn't. 
>Not knowing anything about the Pertronix system, I would guess that it
>was installed incorrectly.  

It's almost impossible to install the Pertronix incorrectly, although I'm
sure if one were creative enough... <grin>.  The module mounts like
breaker-points and the magnet wheel slips over the cam only one way.  The
rotor holds the magnet wheel in place.

Regards,

John L.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
jlandry AT halcyon DOT com      | 
Conservative Libertarian        |  "The road to  tyranny, we must never
Life Member of the NRA          |   forget, begins with the destruction
WA Arms Collectors              |   of the truth."
Commercial Helicopter - Inst.   |                     William J. Clinton
http://www.halcyon.com/jlandry/ |    10-15-95, speech at the Univ. of CT