I pulled the orig 1982-84 Ford Distributor out of my 302 today (E2AE). Installed a new out-of-the-box Pertronix Flame-Thrower plug-and-play distributor with vacuum advance. The dizzy drops down fine. The closest I can get the Pertronix's rotor to point is within 6.5 degrees of the original distributor rotor's position. I marked off the orig Ford rotor with string before removing the dizzy, and then marked off the pertronix's rotor with string (See pix) they are within 6.5 degrees of each other. Re-installed orig Ford dizzy and re-installed Pertronix dizzy still rotors off 6.5 degrees from each other. Will this make a difference? I have not started the car or turned the motor over at all. It looks like Pertronix uses a GM rotor. Would this be the reason for the discrepancy? I'm not using tdc on cyl #1 or anything. I figured it wouldn't make a difference if nothing is moved. I have moved the dizzy oil pump shaft with an extension to get the dizzy rotor as close as possible to the orig Ford dizzy rotor position. But to know avail. Please advise. Thank you.
You must be a tooth out when you dropped the dizzy back in. I hate pulling ford dizzys. It's like a carny game getting it back in.
Sounds like the gear teeth to rotor relationship between the two distributors is different. Doesn't matter, timing is the relationship between the rotor and the cap you'll just need to adjust the timing to make up for the difference. If you run out of adjustment due to the difference you can pull the dist. and move it one tooth back.
The orientation of the rotor only matters relative to the rest of the guts in the distributor housing, the shutter-wheel relative to the sensor that determines ignition make/break...as long as you've got room to rotate the distributor to get the ignition timing correct then you're fine.
Is the distributor you pulled out, the Dura Spark? if so, I would have kept it, it is rated higher voltage than the pertronix unit. I am with the others, sounds like a tooth off, turning the distributor housing slightly to correct it should be fine. I hope you still intend to put a timing light on it, just trying to "match" where the Ford one was will not get you optimal performance.
Thanks for the input, so far. The dizzy gear has 15 teeth which tells me each touth accounts for 24 degrees of dizzy rotation. So moving the distributor one tooth is going to put the rotor more out of wack... like 24-6.5= 17.5 degrees difference instead of the current 6.5 degrees difference. I'm with JEM & VirgilHilts notion of correcting timing by turning the dizzy with a timing light once I initially fire her up. Still open for suggestions. I wish Pertronix had not gone with a GM type rotor and used a Ford rotor. Would help explain things more.
I would turn the motor by hand until you had #1 a few degrees before TDC on the compression stroke and then partially install the dist in the orientation you need the vac can to point and then turn the shaft until it points at #1 plug wire [ once the dist is all the way in ]. You will probably have to tinker with the oil pump drive shaft to get the dist fully seated.
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