have a problem ,car won't idle, keeps hunting and then stalls. runs fine other wize. I disconnected one of the vac hoses on the dizzy(retard i think) and it idles fine. the car ran great then this. its a 73 2.0 FI with crane Ignition(installed for over a year). please help someone has had to have had this Tony D

Adjust the timing to spec, hoses off.
Check the CHT to the proper 73 one and the 270ohm ballast.
To check the dizzy remove it and see if it has any side to side play on the shaft. How much does the timing mark jump around when you time it? The mark should be steady not a 1" blur.

Geoff

I just played with the timing yesterday. I have a rebuilt distributer, with Pertronix installed, from a reputable shop, and my timing mark is NOT "rock steady". The dizzy shaft also has a little side to side play.

I queried the shop and was told, "the dist has to have a little play or it will bind. The bounce is probably in the engine, timing gear play on crank, where it meets the dist drive gear. Very few motors that we time have a rock solid timing. Most jump around a few degrees, and that is ok."

So my understanding is, that unless the engine is newly rebuilt, you'll have a little bit of bounce with the timing no matter how good your distributer is....

Rusty,

I'm not too convinced of that argument. Is this shop the same one that sold you the rebuilt distributor? I thought the point of rebushing a distributor was to get rid of that play.

Jake? Brad? Mark?

-Rusty

It is the same shop I had mine rebuilt from. I would be interested in Brad's take also....

Which Brad? Me? Or Brad Roberts....?

Well, here's my take, anyway. The shaft has to have a bit of slop to it, otherwise, it won't turn. The best test is to monitor the dwell while revving the engine between 2000 and 3000 rpm. If the dwell varies by more than 1 degree, there's too much slop.

As for your car not idling, your symptoms sound like a lean mixture. What is your CO at idle, with the engine fully warmed up? Is it set to spec?

I was thinking Brad Roberts...

The amount of side-to-side slop in the shaft should be measurable, but only in a rigid fixture with a micrometer. If you can feel it just by wiggling the shaft with your fingers, that's too much. Based entirely on me wiggling the shafts of a great many used and newly rebuilt distributors. No snarky comments, please.

There will nearly always be some axial play in the shaft, and that's OK, as long as it's not ridiculous. There will also be some amount of rotational play caused by the drive dog and drive gear backlash. Side-to-side play in the shaft, however, should be minimal.

As for timing jumping around (aka "spark scatter"), that's an artifact of any distributor, caused by the aforementioned backlash. The only way to make it go away is crank-fired distributorless ignition. It should be less with an electronically triggered recently rebuilt distributor, but it won't be gone completely. At least the Type IV drives the distributor off the crank, not the cam (common in other engines), which only introduces another place for backlash. A distributor driven by a camshaft which is itself driven by a long chain is the worst in this dept. Spark scatter is commonly 8-10 degrees on such engines, even with new parts.

Is there a reccomended kit using a crank fired distributorless system that does not require re-engineering the engine to install (less than three hours back up and running)

Rich