Pinto Dizzy Question

[Guest samg1988]

Hello! New here looking for some help..

I'm currently using a pinto dizzy thats been modified to fit a 4AGE engine. The vacuum advance has been removed, but I'm having some issues setting timing reliably.. which I think comes down to what I'm seeing below. New to this type of dizzy.

There are these 4 prongs that seem to move independently from the distributor body.
If I move them by hand, they stay there. Theres a good bit of movement too, which seems to advance or retard the timing.

You can see between these two photos the bit that can move.
Is this something from the old vacuum advance that should now be in a fixed position? Or should it be sprung and part of the mechanical advance?

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by samg1988

[Longboarder]

Looks like a Bosch inductive dizzy. Those four arms, the rotor arm and the top of the dizzy shaft should all be in one unit with fixed positions relative to one another and are attached to the mechanical advance mechanism down in the body of the dizzy. Vacuum mechanism has been removed. There is a plate below the four rotors topped with cream plastic and with four sticky up prongs, nicely seen in the top pic. (in that pic the prongs are aligned with the rotor ends). This plate is moved by the vacuum advance mechanism but should now be fixed firmly static or erratic timing will result. The modifiers intention was to use only mechanical advance. There should be a separate six wire inductive amplifier module to go with it. Reliable, simple and accurate.

 

Nigel

Edited April 25, 2017 by Longboarder

[Guest samg1988]

Thanks nigel. Yes, I have the amplifier module which is wired up to work with this too.

So these 4 prongs attached to the cream plastic... if they should be fixed, what is the normal method of fixing it in place?
I wasnt sure if this was the part of the mechanical advance, and would be what normally moves with springs.

[Longboarder]

I think you are going to have to remove and strip the dizzy to confirm these details. It's 15 years since I have seen one of these. From my dusty memory the plastic and the four sticky up prongs sit on a metal baseplate which is able to rotate on a second fixed baseplate which issecured by three screws to the walls of the dizzy body. The moving baseplate is operated by an arm from the vacuum unit which can turn it 25 degrees or so. Usually people modified this by either removing the vacuum unit complete with its operating arm and finding a space to put a new screw through the two base plates or making up a new arm that could be screwed to the dizzy body and thus held the moving baseplate stationary.

At least that's what I remember. Could have been a different dizzy I am remembering. Strip the dizzy and it all becomes obvious.

 

Nigel

[Big Jim]

The bottom 4 'prongs' move with the mechanical advance as engine revs increase, to alter the amount they move or how quickly they do, you need to strip the dizzy see this link. http://nw.rhocar.org/tuningdizzy.htm

[IanS]

Jim the links on that page need updateing as Daves site has moved to

http://www.dvandrews.co.uk/

[Big Jim]

i can't get into it anymore

[Guest samg1988]

Played around with this today again. Nearly got the car started, but it feels like I'm putting a lot of advance in it.. Ran for about 5 seconds.
I wonder, should I be looking to have the vacuum advance locked in the 'fully advanced' position?

Currently I have it very closely to what I can see in the pictures in this link.
http://nw.rhocar.org/tuningdizzy.htm

[Bob Tucker]

You can lock it any position but you have to retime the ignition

afterwards

[Snapperpaul]

Vacuum advance is only for fuel economy, throttle closed.

So should not affect the the basic setup of ignition timing.

You said it felt like you were putting a lot of advance in? Are you using a timing light? You'll need to have a reference point to understand what idle advance you have and check what full advance the distributor gives.