We have been around race cars, and performance street cars for many, many years. One of the biggest soures for increased performance, and problems, is the cars ignition components. Keeping the system fully functional is simply a matter many times of staying ahead of problems that are going to occur. Ignition wires are good for only a few years, at best, considering the conditions that they operate in. Headers are extremely hot, and burnt wires are not uncommon, which usually means a buying a whole new set of wires, and worse yet, pulling off the race track early. We devleoped these simple but effective plug wire covers, to go on the wire at the spark plug end. They really work, and are less than a new set of wires.
We saw a race car that would not run about ten years ago, on the most humid night of July. The next night we popped the hood, and started it up. You could see electric arcs coming off the plug wires, in the dark. The wires were made by a well known company, and did not have that many laps on them. However, they were more than a couple years old, and simply no good at that point.
The first and most basic thing to do with any race car distribuor, is maximize the spark advance curve. Ideally you do not want the advance to come in before 1,000 RPM (at idle), but you want to have it all in by 4000 RPM, or less. This simply translates into horsepower that your engine has, but is not using. The best way to know you advance curve is to put the distributor in a Sun or King distributor machinhe, and plot out the curve. These machines are getting harder to come by, since they are no longer being produced. The old ones that are still operating, are not as acurate as they once were. Find an engine builder who can work with you on this, and you will not regret it. The curve can be modifed by various spring kits that are available from after market companies. However, we have found that the chart on the back of the package (if there is one) is not always true to what is seen on the machine, during a test run. The curve below shows some results were were happy with, after testing a number of different spring kits for a circle track customer recently.
Even a brand new distributor from one of the well known companies does not include a spring kit, which is sold seperately. Keep in mind they are selling to everyone from drag racers, to steet rodderss, to road racers. Each has different requirements. Vacuum advance is good for a steet vehicle. On a race distributor we also lockout the vacuum advance unit, so there is no chance of the spark advance floating around, during acceleration. So many racers just but a new distributor, and assume everything is OK. Below is a picture of our Sun distributor machine, which has been completely rebuilt by the Parmamont Distributor Machine Co.
We have 11 degrees of advance at the distributor, in the graph above. Since the distributor runs at 1/2 the crank shaft speed, we will have 22 degrees of total advance with the distributor installed. That means that we will need to set the rest of the advance with a timing light, at the crankshaft. If we want 38 degrees of total advance, then the initial timing will be set at 16 degrees. 22 degrees plus 16 degrees equals a total of 38 degrees advance.
Knowing about spark advance is one of the basics, so make sure you fully understand what is going on with your cars distributor. keep the plug wires fresh, and protected. Replace them before trouble occurs. Set your cars timing with a gun at full advance, to make sure you are getting maximum horsepower. Being off by a few degrees the wrong way can result in detonation, which can have disaterous results.
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