Hot Rods How can I fire my inline four without a distributor?

For the sake of simplicity I would relocate the original dist and do the belt drive. That way you dont have to worry about advance curves, computers, MSDs blah blah blah. I guess the only thing you would have to worry about would be the gearing so it would turn at the right rpm. 1:1 gearing should work.

 

Not much gearing to worry about. if both pulleys have the same number of teeth it will run at the same speed it always did. ***uming you are driving off the original shaft. If you are crank driving it, any pulley set from any OHC engine will work. I have a nice set from a Honda Gold Wing. But they are all pretty much the same. Belts are readily available on line from Gates and Dayton.

 

If this thing is in the way of the intake manafold, then why not modify the intake manafold or make one that clears the obstruction?

 

millions of 4 cyl motorcycles ran with no distributor or magneto. They had 2 sets of points driven by the camshaft, each set of points fired a coil with 2 spark plugs, 180 degrees apart.
Today you would use some kind of electronic ignition pickup. If you can find something that can survive running in hot oil you could put the whole thing under the timing cover.

The points cam had a centrifugal advance, today you would used a fixed ignition with timing adjusted by an electronic module.

Or just adapt a crank trigger ignition off one of the millions of cars made since the 90s.

 

If you look at the OHV 32 Plymouth picture you see a very short Pinto distributor. I had it originally in a 2000cc Pinto with EVM fuel injection. They hit. So I shortened it 1/2 inch. Could have taken a little more but 1/2 was enough. Sold the motor and kept the distributor. Modified it again for the Ply. But I remembered that Mallory made an offset distributor for just that application. If I wasn't so cheap I could have just bought one. So I googled "Mallory Offset Distributors" Lots of them if you want to spend lots of money. Up to you. Saw a few on Ebay also.

 

Look this over;

http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/EDIS.htm

 

Sprintcars and nascar cars were using a speed like cable to drive fuel pumps,I have seed some guys on the hamb do the same with alternators no reason you can't drive a dist with that and located where you want.

 

An alternator or fuel pump won't mind if there is a little torsional twist in the cable.

A distributor sure will.

 

I am always amazed how willing the participants here are willing to share a vast array of knowledge. I don't have much to add, but I have learned an awful lot.

The replies have given me some good food for thought and am pursuing a couple of the ideas presented. Thanks so very much. Look for my next thread on how to shorten a T-85 Borg Warner trans input shaft.

Craig

 

You can get many different size cable or run a small drive shaft from a PTO A dist takes very little to turn it.I agree that twist is you enemy ,but a belt can have flex it it to.

 

Even with no load at all, a cable will oscillate as a function of numerous factors including, but not limited to speed, friction, and the length of the cable. Far less accurate than a toothed belt.

 

I know you said you didn't want an angle drive but here's what I did on one of my altereds when I moved the intake ports to the other side of the head. A right angle gear box using Boston bevel gears # HLK-101Y. Maybe others in a similar dilema will find this useful.

 

Frenchtown:
Thanks for sharing the view of your angle drive. I read all the pages of your champ car build. Very impressed.

I believe at this point I will be going with a front mounted belt drive. I had been watching a Mallory 4 cylinder marine distributor with an LED pickup at Summit racing. $700.00 list price! Fortunately, I live close enough to be able to run over when I have a spare hour to check the "scratch and dent" area,. The price came down enough over the weekend and it is now in my shop. Sometime the waiting game works, sometimes you loose. I have found some real cool bargains, even on stuff I didn't even know I had hankered for.

Thanks all! All the input I received was very helpful. It cleared up a lot of the questions I had, and of course, threw some new ones in the mix. Once I ***emble some more parts I would like to start a build thread here.

Craig