Here’s a photo of how far off the reluctor wheel is when rotor is dead center with mark on housing where cap tang for #1 would be.

Welcome Steve, now that I’ve gotten that kinda sorted out I’ll be posting more photos.

Yeah that firing between two terminals at once can wreck a lot of parts very quickly.

Kuick02 in all the HEI distributors I’ve ever had in my hand I’ve never seen one where the reluctor was pressed on incorrectly. Ever. That’s completely due to the fixture they used to press ,assemble and swage the assembly together at the plant.

I won’t say that there was absolutely 0 chance of that being done , but I’ve never run across one yet. Now if this were a rebuilt kinda Cardone or especially some hodge podge put together thing from the back lot of a shady alley…. Well then anything is possible. I have seen them brazed together before, but that’s not OEM.

On an average cap. The burn pattern will be approx 3/4 of the distance across the terminal plate and not dead center but favoring one side more than the other. But definitely well on the terminal. This would include but certainly not limited to either the vac advance having a hole in it or the mech advance being stuck.

Unless something has been goofed with. Or if a bad module was running in there for awhile. That’s a subject I’ll bring up later.

And as Steve said earlier a big rotor gap actually can affect this, even though it would depend on several things, and certainly would be not likely measurable by the seat of your pants or really even visible except by thousandths of an inch.
It can make a difference but I assure I you it’s awfully small of one in that aspect.

Again without much more info to go on than what we know now and 1 pic , I’ll leave it at …something isn’t right under there, and it is not a fuel delivery issue causing it. Not distributor wise anyway.

I know it’s a tight fit with those year cars to drop the HEI in right but here’s a way to do it that only requires one other persons help for all of five seconds.

Set up the Dizzy with out the cap on it with a black marker line centered where you want number 1 wire to be.

Next just drop it in and do what needs to be done to load it into the cam gear and still point to number 1.

Don’t even fuss with trying to engage the oil pump drive.

Next drop on the hold down clamp and put the bolt in to just grab one thread.

The hold down should no be appling force to the Dizzy.
Next a that second person crank the motor while you keep only light hand pressure on the Dizzy.

In no more the one revolution of the Dizzy you will have it dead on where you want it.

Would anyone happen to have an hei apart to snap picture of reluctor wheel to rotor mount correlation to compare to mine?

here is one i have laying in spare parts bin, i cannot atest how accurate it is pulled from pic a part but thoretically it led a productive prior life

they do appear to be clocked different
this is my last oem hei destined to get cleaned up and installed in my 433

My thoughts were that I have a Chevy (clockwise) reluctor in a Pontiac (counterclockwise) distributor. I’m going to compare when I have time as I do have a ‘64 C-10 with a 350 and HEI. Thanks for the picture.

you may be on the root cause :) also that could very well be your WOT problem the spark is barely able to jump the gap then when you stab the throttle vacum advance drops off creating more spark gap from rotor to cap plugs see reduced power and dont fire as well

Is that a newer pertronix distributor?

In other words, no one has rebrazed or silver soldered the reluctor sleeve to the top plate correct?

Reason I ask is I’ve seen that done before. Usually what happens is it gets loose and someone just sticks it back together. Of course if it’s off enough when that’s done it causes problems.

Check it out. Let us know what you find there.

From the pics I can see a huge difference already.

The reluctors are powdered metal. Their pressed onto a splined round hub. That assy is then placed into the top plate and located precisely in a jig and then swaged.

That’s the way GM did it and I’m sure the way it’s still done. Except I never saw any GM reluctors get loose. I’ve seen boxes of the aftermarket stuff about to fall off….

Sun Tuned Is that a newer pertronix distributor?

No, it’s a summit rebuild from years ago (20ish) when I built the engine. I just cut away an old cap at #6. Gonna try and post pic or video (first time posting) so bear with me.

Video pretty much looks like your pic of Chevy. Explains why this distributor was always so hard to drop in. I always had rotor pointed at #1 but didn’t bother checking reluctor to pickup coil alignment.

Another thing I have to double check is timing chain for hopping a tooth or sheering the key way. Only has 5 degrees (crank) of slop. I’ve seen way worse.

Here’s the video link:

https://youtu.be/EWXlPfpR7-g

Timing chain doesn't change distributor phasing.

Yours is way off and would get worse with more RPM's.

Clay

That’s what I thought but I’m in analysis paralysis right now. Gonna pick up a used HEI from a friend tomorrow to pull apart. It’s a Chevy but I thought they were all the same even though they turn in different directions. Thanks.

Actually the Chevy reluctor plate would have to have the hardware removed and flipped over and reinstalled to work for a Pontiac. In other words a mirror image. Just best to use the correct parts to start with.

Bear in mind if you were to cut that cap on down to where you could see the pickup coil easily. When that deal fires the spark it will not only freeze that rotor tip at the top but you’d get a stellar education for what goes on at the reluctor/pick up coil interface as well.

I’ll spare everyone the details.

That distributor doesn’t fire at the exact moment the reluctor teeth are perfectly aligned.

It fires just after the teeth are aligned and then they break.

Which optically looks as if the teeth are about 1/8” away from being perfectly lined up.

Magnetic flux does not dissapte instantly hence that 1/8" distance before a spark is released.

Moved (rephased) reluctor
 

So I took apart the distributor again and pressed the reluctor off and pressed back on. Took video of results.


https://youtu.be/CONxGfKPQSs

Going to fiddle with adjustable vacuum advance and check mechanical advance, then tune carb. Will repost after that to see if it’ll cure my issues. Pretty confident it will.

Thanks guys.

Here are pics from moving reluctor and end result of rotor pointed dead center of #1 cap terminal (black marker on housing) with reluctor phased with pickup coil now.

As long as the leading edge and trailing edges of rotor tip and cap contacts are overlaped, throughout the timing curve, you're good to go.

With 12° centrifugal advance (that's 24° at the crank), the button tip advances close to 3/4ths of an inch. The width of the rotor tip X 2 + cap contact width is enough to still have overlap from idle to full advance.

Sayin', button centered with no advance could lose overlap with full advance.

make sense?
Clay

if you lined up the reluctor with rotor tip your not there yet, as sun tune stated the start of magnetic trigger needs some lead time before secondary ( spark energy) is released

thats why neither yours or my picture has the reluctor pointed straight at the rotor tip

making spark is a sequence of events something has to happen in totallity before the next event this phenom can be expressed in time which shows up in degrees if rotation in a rotating environment