Quote: Alignment can be also be done on the bench using an old cap with holes drilled in it. Line up the reluctor with the pickup and look thru the spark plug wire hole to see if the alignment is correct Or align rotor with spark plug hole, remove cap and check reluctor to pick up alignment
The vac adv plays an important part in where the "zero" position of the pickup ends up. Many times shimming the vac adv away from the housing quickly corrects any offset. You can also shorten the length of the arm on the vac adv as well if you are creative enough. Typically you will need to space the canister away from the dist body or shorten the arm length to correct any misalignments.
Again I will emphasize how much better any car runs with a phased distributor.
The pic shows the typical misalignment
let me ask- this picture shows a misalignment at idle. but, when the distributor starts advancing, the pickup will move counterclockwise and brign the misalignment back into alignment, won't it? so the net effect would be proper rotor phasing at higher rpm where its more important.
