How do you know how much mechanical advance is built into your distributor?

There's a number stamped on the governor........ (under the plate)

It's usually something like 9R, 11R, 15R and is distributor advance in degrees.

Double for crankshaft advance

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

You have to pull your distributor and pull the pickup plate to see what it has...I've done enough "hunting" I can roll the governor slot into a hole in the plate and see if it's short or long...

If it's not stamped on the top, you'll have to pull the hairpin in the nose of the governor and pull it it should be stamped on the bottom.


-D.Idiot

Can anyone suggest a book or some other article for me to read about timing curves. I want to recurve my distributor but I just do not quite understand everything I need to understand to do this. Thanks for the help.

search under "distributor article" . Someone made a very elaborate distributor tuning article. it is an adobe file. It will tell you what you need to know and more.

i take it that the number i am looking for is stamped on the vacuum advance can. mine is stamped 8.5R.

How do you figure the advance now? 8.5 X 2 = 17

So to get between 28 and 32 degrees total, I need to set the initial to between 11 and 15 degrees at idle?

Is this correct or am i way off base?

Vacuum advance is separate from centrifugal.. (and is also 2x.. )

You want 28-32 mechanical, then vacuum is on top of that (approx 50 total)

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I am sorry that I am having such a hard time with this but I still cannot find this number. I have looked at the distributor, which is dissasembled, and looked in my factory service manual and cannot find a part labeled governor.

Look at the peice that the little star wheel or point lobe is attached to there is a flat plate with two long slots cut into it the number should be stamped on one side up close to the center.

_________________
Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

See this thread, about halfway down.[/url]

_________________
Used to own:
'82 Dodge D150
Erson 270 Cam, O/S valves, mild port work, ~9.5:1 compression

Currently fighting with an '85 VW Cabriolet

My other passion

I understand what i am looking for now. i cant get the pin out of the distributor gear so i can remove the shaft. is there any other way to find out what the advance is? i am fairly sure that the distributor is original to my car which is a 73 model. thanks for the help.

The dist drive gear does not have to be removed. The shaft slides out from the top so the gear can stay.
The hard part of disassembly is removing the small hairpin clip in the inside top of the shaft, below the rotor. What I do is spread the 2 prongs on the clip and at the same time apply a downward pull of the shaft. Once the clip is out of the groove, the shaft slips out.

Here's an 8.5R vacuum advance canister, it's marked on the arm going to the breaker plate. This is NOT what I refer to as the advance plate.

Here's a 15R advance plate.

Here it is after I brazed the slot smaller and filed the slots to same length as what a 7.5R advance plate would be.

Here is the modified advance plate back on top of the weights.

_________________
Slant Cecil

You can always measure:

A: the slot length
B: the pin diameter.
C: A-B = movement available
D: C/X = degrees of advance

X= .0157"

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Those are some great pics Cecil. I have a 10r governor that I am going to install in my Duster this weekend if all goes well. Maybe it will get this thing into the 18's. Do you have a close up pic of the hairpin you were talking about that holds the governor in place. I would kind of like to know what I am up against. so I can start gathering tools. Is the retainer pin as hard to reinstall as it is to remove.

_________________
82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

The hairpin is under the foam oil keeper in the top of the shaft....

Looks like a bent up paperclip and is a real b$$$h to remove......

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes