I just got a new pickup coil, as the previous one was defective.

Anyway... installed, and it was fine. For a while. And now it's not. Gapped it with a brass 0.10 tool, and it didn't seem like there was any issue. Now the thing is chirping and missing like a son of a gun.

It doesn't do this 100% of the time, but certainly does on heavy acceleration, or even medium acceleration.

Help!

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

I am assuming you meant 0.010 for the clearance. I usually set it to .010 and then make certain a thicker shim (.012) is tight. Also, check it on more than one lobe as it will make a difference.
-Matt

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-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

The whole original reason why I had to install a new pickup coil was the fact that somehow it had ended up rubbing on the reluctor. So, turns out I needed a new reluctor, as well.

Fortunately, I had an old distributor in my garage, and took the reluctor from it. All seems to be OK now, albeit I still here a tiny chirp-like noise on strong acceleration. No continual chirping, and no misfire, though.

Hopefully this is a permanent fix for now, as I'm installing a spring kit on the older distributor (just ordered a new reluctor and pickup for that one) and I'm going full recurve on it with the help of some of the aluminum wire I bought today.

The experimentation continues! Thanks for the tip on the .12 gauge. I'll use it for my recurve.

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

for what its worth

I am going through the same experience concerning setting up the reluctor to coil gap,,

I asked an electrical engineer that I work with and have a lot of respect for he used to work on engine electronic sand now develops systems that self park cars ,,,,and got the following reply..

I would guess that they would call out the max recommended dimension. You can't get too close until you make contact. This isn’t a spark plug. You don’t need any gap except to avoid contact. Since it is turning at 1/2 engine RPM and it is a small diameter, there is not much risk of centrifugal expansion or run out.

I also checked online. When I searched "distributor pickup coil clearance" I found an article where someone asked about an 83 slant six. They said the book called out 0.006". The advice was the same. In fact he said not to use a feeler gauge. He said to position it as close as possible without touching. If you have a lot of variation in the prongs, I would say to find the tallest one and set it as close as possible and you know the others clear.

There was a similar issue on the I326. We had to use 2 different length pickups on the Crank position sensor so we could get a tight enough gap. They had to check each engine and use the long one if there was room and the short one if the clearance was too tight.

Making the gap tighter will increase the rate of change in the magnetic field and make the ignition switch faster. Switching faster will likely increase the spark at the coil and at the plugs.


That is the best info that I have,,,In setting up a couple of slant six distributors I found,, through trial and error that I could set the average reluctor to coil gap to .012 to .010 using the adjustment screw on the coil mechanism.

then I would lock it down and use a substantial screw driver to pry the coil inward to the reluctor to get the final 'thousands' setting..to .006 to .007 I would have the coil in a gap between two reluctor points and over bend the coil bracket,, when the pressure was released it would relax back,, not as far back as it was originally.
need to be careful to pry in and not let the vacuum adjustment action spring up.

Is there one Brand of Reluctor that is preferred? I bought a couple from RockAuto and they were both CRAP (SMP). They didn't even come close to the quality of casting that the original one was.

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1964 Dart GT

if you think the SMP were crap,,
you should see the manufactures close out "Zenith" brand,,
I also got a Wells set that looks fine,

you have to watch it when doing this as you can also misalign the pick up top to bottom with the reluctor tooth if you use too much force... Only the OEM reluctors are good enough to get a gap that tight, I would not set it any closer than .010 if using an unknown reluctor as I've seen a few that had one or two teeth that are taller than the rest, so setting it to .010 got .012 on the shorter teeth...using my distributor machine and simulating the ignition system on the running distributor I found no change in spark quality or variance in timing up to 8000 engine rpm whether the gap was .008 or .014 on an EI dizzy....the sense wave using the mopar system lends it self to more of a sine wave than a square wave, I would expect to need a tighter gap if the trigger was designed a little differently (probably why mopar went to the hall effect triggers in the late 80's with more electronic/computer control)...It is important to look at the arm on the vacuum can, if not indexed properly, or you are using another model with a longer arm or lots of advance it can change the position of the advance plate and cause all sorts of mayhem with the reluctor teeth and pickup.

If the quality of the pickup plate and screw are not that great the pickup can move if the engine sees a lot of vibration and you'll grind the pick up off and goof up the reluctor (this can happen if you are pounding the crap out of the car with lots of back to back clutch dumps and a built engine).

Wells isn't much better than anything else, and to be truthful a lot of pick ups bought now look like a wells/airtex unit put in the other brand's box (which lends itself to the reality that one offshore place is making our unpopular parts and selling them in lots to the few vendors that want to sell them...similar to the current vacuum can situation).