Hey John I'm so glad that you made this video! Points can't keep up at high rpm like a mag pickup can it's just psychics! The ballast resistor can be eliminated check out www.4secondsflat.com for more info...points are cool I can work with them but the good old Mopar electronic ignition in my 84 ramcharger never broke down once. In 8yrs with electronic ignition and my 87 is going for the last 4yrs same way...and vacuum advance is key to decent gas mileage. But don't tell uncle Sanford this it has to be analog! Or it garbage! and I always carry spares weahter points or electronic....man I've even run two boxes in tandem with a switch to go from one to the other like they did in NASCAR back in the day. You did a great job explaining to all the cult members all th key points of the the distributor. You are a true mechanic my friend.
back when i was doing circle track i used a 6 al msd with a switch to the purple or blue mopar ignition (i dont remember the color). never had to use it but tested it before every race. I just gave the box to lammy to use on his gasser but repo-man gave a much better one. by the way moparnut62 did you hear what jacob said when he pointed at the camera HEHE
What a awesome video... I have 2 that are still points.. 1 is my grandmother's 72 Buick skylark!..got original Rochester torn down on kitchen table.. Dist and carb go hand in hand so i came across your video! Thanks brother
Been missing you guys and your lessons. Glad to see a new vid. The problem with points is there aren’t free matchbooks available everywhere like there used to be.
One of the few videos I've seen where I can honestly say I can't disagree with any point made. What percentage of the time is any car that's used on the street running flat out? Perhaps two percent of the time if it's got big power, for the 98% of the time it's running at part throttle, it needs vac advance, because leaner mixtures need more timing, it's a no brainer.
you can take your ballast resister and take the resistance wire out of it and put a heavy gauge wire in its place and run a coil with an internal ballast resister incase a person is going for that factory stock look. on the factory slant6 intakes can you run a hot plug on the short runners since they run richer then the longer runners and cool plugs on the longer runners for better burn with the fuel / air mixure after you have checked your carb and distributor ect ?
I get what you're saying about the factory look. The only vehicle I can think of that used a internal ballast was volkswagen air cooled. They took a relatively low amperage to crank over leaving alot of voltage for the coil during cranking. On almost all American vehicles the amp draw during cranking is way higher. Compromising spark during cranking. This is why ford GM and chrysler have a cranking bypass circuit to give a full 12v to the coil and giving a hot spark during cranking and then back to ballast after start. Slants and 318s don't gobble up a ton of power during cranking but if your battery is week maybe you left your lights on or just a bad battery. This bypass system will save the day. And if its 4406pack 340 of hemi forsure you will have the ignition you need. Compression takes more amperage and compression needs more voltage at the plug to jump the gap. If you use a internal ballast you will eliminate the bypass circuit.
As far as this theory about runner length. I've seen a few vids about this and I'm not going to by into it. All the runners pull from the same plenum that plenum has the same mix throughout there all at the same rich lean. The outside cylinders will pound out more torque at a lower rpm then the middle so at wide open throttle there maybe some differential between combustion Temps at different rpms but not at a crews or simple acceleration. These different plug colors on the vid i seen are more then likely caused by compression differential or distributor run out or just a horrible engine rebuild. But certainly not caused by runner length. There are a ton of ways of pulling power out of a slant more because there is so much to do. The factory never intended for engine to become a major power house they were intended awesome flexibility longevity and good power compared to the competition. There is no doubt they are a great piece for outstanding power for there size but that is because much of what makes a engine last and economy also build performance. I think the vid i saw about fuel distribution on a slant was a guy trying to talk over people's heads and have everybody say wow that guy is amazingly smart. The hole point im making is this plug thing is a waste of time till you get all other things maxed out. 7.5 to 8.5 compression is not going cause a problem with plug heat till you running to lean or overheating the hell out of you engine.
Hi Tall John, Hi Jacob !! Yes, I used to carry many spare parts in the trunk. I saved distributer caps, rotors plug wires points thermostats etc... When I was married, I came home from work and figured I'd put my wife's car in the garage. The slant 6 turned over fine, but it didnt even TRY to start. My wife came out asking what's up. I said, it won't start. She had just gotten home 15 minutes previous. Yep, ballast resister failed. There was a spare in the car, but I did not know where her dad had stashed it so I bought a new one. My wife's '74 Gold Duster 225 lived 23 years!!!
This is what RU-vid is for...Providing useful content to the people watching. Thanks for sharing your time, knowledge & experience. Best wishes! P.S. I am guessing that you would approve of an HEI conversion for an old Chrysler points ignition system?
Yes I would. I myself am more of a purist but there is no denying that HEI is a great upgrade for points. I love how simple and easy to work on HEI is weather it be tune up or repair or modification for the street or track or even mileage performance. !
@@talljohnsfunshop2722 You had me at "simple and easy." I have my points distributor out and a electronic distributor with vacuum advance in its place. I found a GM e-coil with the heat sink plate in the junk yard the other day for $11. I ordered a new 4 pin module since you cannot use the module on it. I think all I will need now is a correct coil wire and a little bit of wiring it up and fingers crossed. Have you ever done the conversion from points to electronic before? I am working on a '63 Dart with a Slant 6.
i have converted about 10 using the Chrysler kit. and several using a HEI module. Now instead of the kit i hit up the yards and pull distributor and wire them myself. Sounds to me like your getting that handle!!!
I'm so glad that Jacob is an "old school" student, this stuff is 500% any ASE crap school no one can understand , or tune a car too... btw: where did you get the timing specs? Google is so flooded with ads I just can't seem to find the timing curves for a 80's chevy sb350 (work van, 10,000lb), and/or a 64 ford comet wagon (fun car) straight 6 200ci... I wish I could send Jacob my distributors to tune...
There are no exact timing spec that we use. there are simple test that we use to find the exact timing and that will be in a future vid, Factory spec are smog related and por gas related so i would never use those.
Another great video! You are an excellent instructor. My question is how did Jacob's hair manage to grow so much by the end of the video!? ; ) Thank you and best wishes from AZ
Hey John I have a question...I bought a 1984 toyota hiace and it has a 12R engine in it...I'm getting problems with the points it burning out quickly...I have changed the resistor and the condensor but after a few km on the road I'm getting a stuttering and then no power or trouble starting...as soon as I change it well it runs good again...what u think about this.
I would check the coil. The coil is what puts the load across the points. The ballast and condenser do affect the load also but the coil is the direct load on the points. Good luck Riccardo
Great vid bro. Good to see you and Jacob are doing well. Have been pondering whether to stick to the points set up in the Pontiac, but you two have convinced me my best bet is to go EI.
i was getting badly made points from the parts store so i went to tractor supply and started using the ones for tractors they are better imo aslo hei is awesome it requires only one wire to run you engine a key on 12 v wire to the distributer
I never purchased points at tractor supply but that sounds like good advice. I also like HEI 1 wire set up. Its simple and easy to tune. Its more about the power level your working with and more RPM related. GM HEI has hi power limitations, you can put a improved coil in and a improved module for better ignition but If you start to get serious its limited. but its also about using mopar on a mopar and ford on a ford too. If you go with mopar the modules are better and MSD used a mopar style pickup proving there quality and really to go to a mopar setup its only 2 wires . Power source to the coil and to the module the 2 wires to the pickup are part of the harness already (unless your staring from scratch) same with tach lead and with this ignition you can make serious improvements. if you use HEI my advice is to make sure you use a larger gauge wire for your 12v source and make sure you igntion switch can handle the load. I think the HEI is good for most applications so definitely use them and certainly way better then points ignition.
my 73 beetle is no hotrod. it is almost all original including the correct distributor. in this case you don't have to change the whole distributor just some parts. I know the electronic ignition parts are working or they are not with this application so I carry a spare setup with points. on a rally, if my electronics goes, I just throw in a fresh distributor in minutes and off I go. The points ignition will run when our enemies drop electronic crippling bombs on us. the electronic ignition wont work if that happens.
What cool car. I have copied vw in the sense that I put a bracket on the distributor that I could loosen to change timing instead of the traditional were you loosen the hold down. This way I had a spare that was timed and ready to go. Like a Volkswagen on a mopar the distributor is drive by a t shaft but Volkswagen did 1 better and offset it so it only went one way. Very cool stuff.
Hi, John, Thanks for the video series. I found out why I had an occasional tick at idle. Electronic disty: I measured the gap w my brass feeler .008" and half were in spec, the rest at .010. I tried to set the closest to .008. My technique not so good. Starting the engine, i heard loud ticking!! Popped the cap and noticed the center shaft has play. I only have a few thousand miles on this Mopar model - new when I bought it. I went and reset the closest to .010" and ticking all gone. If you read this, can u tell me if the shaft should be moving?? It's about .004" play. Thank you
There should be very little side to side movement. Setting it at 10 though is not a big deal. I notice that Setting it as narrow as possible is a advantage especially if you using a old slow original starter. But whenever you check your gap put vacuum on the advance dash pot because this will narrow the gap and if you have run-out the reluctor can hit the pickup.
yes there will be. some video is done already with the test drive . but the engine is coming out and will be on the same vid and that is happening soon
What I like about points is it gives you warning when it needs tuning: idle might just a tiny bit funky, and power is missing coming up on rpm. When contacts start behaving like a resistor [instead of a clean return path], coil output begins dropping.
Hey Flinch just want to say thanks for watching and appreciate your input, every body has there way about why and what and so on. I see things differently here, since most of what I do is racing I can't take the chance of miss fire or loss of power so if I'm using points I set a limit like so many passes or miles things like that. I feel the same about oil changes or plugs, I set a distance. Also since some of my stuff is grocery getter that my wife uses on occasion and it's really tuned for milage I put a time limit on them for that reason. Even with electronic over points all the components in the ignition system there is a mileage or time limit. So the point here is if you wait for a miss fire your to late. Also might add that even though points are cheap on my electronic stuff I never replace anything and never set anything. No dwell set (that should be checked a few times in the life of the points) never set timing but every 100000 miles just to access timing chain life. Again I'm not knocking the way you do yours just having a conversation on how and why I do mine. Thanks again for your input.👍
Yes. The '74 Duster was a dual ballast, my dad's 78 or '79Dodge Omni was a single. Same thing with the Omni, it drove home, wouldn't start later to put in garage. The Omni I jumped the ballast with one jumper lead just to get car into the garage...
I wish I had a omni Howard someday after the lock down and the money starts to flow again im going to look for one. I am going to be looking for a rampage also. If its ok I'm going to quote you on my diagnostic vid in the future if I may because of your temp fix and experience.
@@talljohnsfunshop2722 sure...that's fine....One question Tall John; when my dad was gonna sell the Omni, we needed to remove the right rear wheel for some reason, but it wouldn't come off. We loosened the lug nuts to almost falling off and drove over some really bumpy dirt roads. Nothing. Tried hitting the rim, using wood blocks. Nope. Used rust buster where the rim met the hub, and lug nut studs....Nope...How could we have gotten it off with minimal tools???
