flathead distributor any info on this?

a friend showed me this wants info thought i would throw this out there to see if anyone knew something about it. billy

 

hey bruce knower of all. any idea's on this. billy

 

Puzzling oddity, very complicated way to get dual coul ignition??
Little Autolite 4-banger distributors were used on many early small cars, the most common being Willys-Jeep-Henry J types, but LOTS of others.
Flange is 4-bolt '37 type, dual pattern to fit 60 and 85 '37-41.
Maybe the elaborate adaptor was originally made to mount two industrial mags on a flathead??
Maybe once 2-8 cylinder rigs for dual plug heads?
As is, seems like a very complicated way of accomplishing not much...and a betcha it would bring about a zillion dollars on Ebay as an odd piece of flathead speed stuff.
Show the other piece of aluminum...21A adaptor??
Does it have anything to connect to flathead cam slot??
I see an odd and unclear coupler in there...could that be for a Harmon Collins Mag hookup??
Do you have everything needed to attach that?? I now see the odd coupler piece is on the FRONT...

 

Could this have been modified from one of the twin Bosch mag units? God only knows why someone would do that, but having the intricate casting takes it out of the home made category. My next thought was a prototype idea that never went any farther than this one unit.

 

something for an aircraft conversion??? can't really imagine why other than that

 

could this have been for a fire truck engine ? they had redundant ignition systems so if one failed the other would keep the engine running ?

 

Those aren't redundant...each runs half the engine.

 

Whatever it is it's cool.

 

i will try to get more pics everything is there to hook it up to the flat head it has the cam slot drive and the adaptor plate. i might see if i could comonder it. thanks bruce i knew i could count on you. billy

 

There were several dual mag/dist systems. Here is another.

 

As Bruce mentioned earlier, dual coils were a big bonus. Plus running a four cylinder distributor helped eliminate point bounce/float at higher RPMs. that you would get with eight lobes on the cam. Nice ad Tommy!