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Wow the cauldron of discontent...
I am amazed that a simple check for a problem and a fix that really works gets so much discourse.

Phasing works and the car runs better. Another perfect example of why some cars are faster & run better than others.

I have checked a number of used caps-the good ones-not the elcheepos-and there is no geometric tolerancing problem with the index slot and the positioning of the terminals. Are there any other forensic questions??

Here is a pic of the test cap terminals,that came off an un-phased distributor. Please look at the pic post #1 and look at the difference. Higher resistance in an electrical path reduces the efficiency of the circuit. E=IR



You keep making wild statements like "the car runs better" but you haven't been able to back this up with any factual evidence.

You show us this one cap, here, and proclaim that it is an example of the badness at hand, but....evidently you have run no electrical analysis on this specific cap/ dist setup. You should be able to actually MEASURE the loss of power and possibly see it on an ignition scope.

I=E/R indeed. The secondary circuit is by nature a VERY high impedance circuit BY DESIGN. Let's add up the losses:

Several ohms in the two terminal connections at the coil/ cap tower, net loss= nearly zero

More than several ohms in the coil resistance wire (if used) and more yet in the resistor plug wires (if used)

A few more ohms lost in the terminal connections at the plug wire ends

MANY ohms lost --by design--at the rotor contact and gap. BEAR IN MIND that in the case of GM a "short" rotor was used on some cars BY DESIGN so in this case we are talking EVEN MORE gap

Now to the plugs. Some plugs have a gap in the insulator, some are resistor, and nearly all have a spring loaded arraingment in the ceramic, a few more ohms lost, and of course finally...

We have the plug gap itself, and whatever the firing conditions are in the chamber

The point? The HT voltage has got to be WAY more powerful than any of these losses, which are in the system by design and by necessity.

Now you post this last picture....how do you know that this cap is a problem? I see no obvious tracking on the cap, it MAY WELL BE POSSIBLE that as I mentioned earlier, the "corners" of the rotor/ contact came into alignment as the spark fired, and it stopped where you see the end of the arc in the middle of the contact. Or, the other way around.

YOU STILL HAVE NOT presented any viable proof that what you are presenting here is actually making any difference in performance, and worse yet, any quantifiable evidence of how good or bad the situation gets with a given misalignment, for example, .020" off from center causes 5hp loss, etc.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you simply haven't proved your arguement. There may well be bigger fish to fry. Spark scatter, for instance, has always been a problem with factory Mopar ignition, due partly to the design of the dist. drive and the dist. itself, and of course slop in the cam drive. It may well be, for example, that while you are fine tuning the dist for phasing, you may well have bad enough scatter that your efforts are for naught.