When I was running my distributor locked I had a separate switch under the dash that cut power to the coil. Once I had the engine spinning I would flip the switch and it would start without putting a huge load on the starter.

Tim;


Thanks for the kind words and for the opportunity to be a part of this project with you, it's sincerely appreciated. :beers:



Eric

The ball just keeps rolling. I got a call from Steve at AMS today and he got the original 396 apart.

Great news!!!!

Everything in the short block was brand new! Bearings, rings, bores, crank journals, etc........ Venolia 11:1 pistons @ .060. There were 2 head bolts holes that needed repair, but that is really it.

The bores were heavily greased (which was more like tar now) so that took a bit to clean out. Steve just wants to drag the monkey balls through the cylinders, clean, and reassemble. I may have mentioned, the original heads look great as well. The valves and seats will get touched up and reassembled.

Looking back, it was 1 month on the 12th of January I took everything down to AMS. While the work involved with both the 396 and the 427 was not invasive whatsoever, I still feel it's killer service.

Engine looks great and strong numbers.

Today, I tore into the Roto-Faze dizzy. Pretty interesting mechanism inside to manage to advance curve. Even more interesting yet, I had found a phone number through some internet sleuthing. On a long shot, I called this afternoon. Low and behold........someone answered!!

I spoke to John (the diseased owners nephew). He was VERY helpful. He asked for the serial number of the dizzy. From that he can tell me how it was set up originally. From that, he is going to get me the clearance spec for the weight adjustments (to set the overall advance) and will be sending me springs to manage the curve.

What a pleasant surprise......had to share!

Amazing that someone was there to support this ancient distributor. You must have some good karma….

----WOW! How cool is that! There are good people out there. Sometimes you have to search a bit, but it's worth it!.....Bill S

NO KIDDING !! The word "amazing" got worn out in my vocabulary 10 years ago after watching a few Bachelor shows, but it certainly fits with this topic.
Tim, a number of the brass towers for the springs appear to be cut off. Are they still long enough to function properly ?

Are you going to keep points or go electronic ?

If points did he have any suggestion for high rpm use in there ?

Yeah, I know, too damn many questions....I'll shut up and wait...:blush:

I'm going to wait for John to get back to me. I have ordered a set of HD Ford Y block points for the time being. After reading up on a few different retrofit dist pick up's, not all of them will fire an MSD box. I bought this car for the first time back in 2013. Having said that, it's safe to say the points are at least 10 years old. In my GM distributors, I have had luck with a fresh set of points taking 7000 RPM.

On a different note (and to give credit to John at Roto-Faze), I could send the distributor back into them to have it worked over. They have a distributor machine that will turn 9000 RPM (so 4500 dist RPM) to ensure I wouldn't struggle with point bounce. BUT, they are in need of a part for it, so it's out service right now. I'll keep that idea in my back pocket.

I have the same observations about the towers for the advance springs. I'll chat with John when he gets back to me with the dist specs.

Tim

That's great, Tim. You are way above my pay grade on this one, I'm still working on gapping some original Corvette plugs I bought at a garage sale.