I have seen photos of dual point mallory distributors with two condensers connected. Is there any performance gain to this?what is the point? It is not letting me post and image at the moment. I will try and send one later. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
The distributor sounds like a Mallory for use with a MagSpark transformer. The MagSpark transformer is a unique coil that connects to the point sets independently. Because there is no jumper wire inside the distributor connecting the points a condenser is needed for each.
That was my original though. But then I noticed they were connected together Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
We went through this a couple of months ago. In short, the distributor is for a kind of a dual coil setup. The points should not be connected together like a regular Mallory dual point and it should have a 4 lobe cam. They use a special version of a Mallory "FlashFire" coil that has two primary windings and one secondary winding. Each set of points sends current to it's own primary winding, which energizes the secondary winding causing the high voltage spark. This way, they could have a dual coil set up that uses a regular cap and rotor setup without two secondary spark paths from the coil. In effect, it is two separate 4 cylinder ignition systems, and each needs it's own condenser. To make sure, open it up and tell us if if the points are tied together and whether it has a 4 lobe distributor cam. If the points are connected, it' s to be able to use this like a regular dual point with a single coil. The special FlashFire coils are very hard to find these days, so a lot of guys jumpered the points together so they could use a regular coil. In this case, the second condenser is redundant. They key to what it actually is is whether it has a 4 lobe or 8 lobe cam. Actually, the original concept was quite ingenious.
Got it. I do remember talking about that actually. It was just how they condensers were wired together is what threw me off. But Thank you for clarification. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Hi, Tubman: I have a mallory distributor with an 8 lobe, dual point setup. The points are connected together onto one terminal. It has an old original condenser (same as above picture). Can I use a new small condenser with this to replace the larger unit? Or can I purchase one of your large reproduction condensers? Mark
I thought I would throw this in. I just finished re-conditioning an Accel dual point. It only uses one condenser on the inside, that is only connected to one set of points. But I guess it is connected to both sets as the wires from the point sets are connected to each other at he coil. I have not installed it yet. Currently I am running a re-worked stock GM point dist. in my Stude pickup. We took it to the track last weekend and the condenser failed. So I had a N.O.S 600 v Mallory and I installed it 18 inches from the distributor for easier service, so right now it works as it should and time will tell if moving the condenser up stream of the distributor works in the long term.
A couple of points of information. There are two types of dual point distributors. One has the point sets tied together and uses this setup to increase the dwell time and thus coil saturation. They have a single coil and condenser. The other type operates as two separate 4 cylinder ignition systems, firing the plugs alternately. This type requires the points operating independently and two condensers and two coils (or the special coils mentioned above). In my work with points ignition systems, I have found that the actual capacitance of the condenser is really not that important. The engine will run fine over a wide range of capacitances; the difference is in point life (the wrong condenser will burn points over a period of time).
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