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I double checked my setup and on two of the cylinders the reluctor gap is tighter than the other six. Is this ok.

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that might be because the shaft is moving

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i am wondering wether fabricating a custom rotor tip which is wider than the stock one would make sense ... so the spark doesnt have to jump so far when vacuum advance kicks in ...

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I used to sell these reluctors that were modified with extra slots so the distributor could be phased. That trick worked really well for me back when I was running factory distributors.

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I still have one you did that I bought from GregZ years ago...

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I'm still looking for "the proof." For example, quite a few modern vehicles have been built with crank triggered, computer controlled ignition WHICH IS THEN FED through a distributor WITH A LOCKED ADVANCE. This means that WHATEVER the computer does to the ignition advance, THE ROTOR DOES NOT CHANGE and therefore THE PHASING MUST CHANGE over the range of the advance. So let's say that the advance range in the computer is something, say, 10-50*. That's a spread of 20*, the center of which is 30* at the crank. THIS MEANS that if you phase the distributor at 30* crank degrees advance, the rotor phasing WILL STILL CHANGE by plus and minus 20 degrees!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I admit fully that I haven't researched these types of problems, but neither has the original poster---who hasn't posted on shread of dyno or oscope or mileage proof that this is an important or prevelant problem. All I know is, my Ford Ranger has the above listed type of distributor--and it doesn't seem to have problem tracking the cap!!! It doesn't exhibit poor mileage or driveability problems. I ran old Mopars thousands of miles, and I know a cap tracking problem when I see it.

The original poster is making statements like "your car will run better". Well fine---if it does, you should be able to prove it. You should be able to take an example car and show some 0-60 times, or mileage change, or something to back up your claims.

The question STILL in my mind is, "is this a problem" or "is this a PERCEIVED problem?"

(This would not be the first time that a bunch of sheep have run off a cliff.)

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My deepest apologies to the rest of of the moparts board who have had to put up with the mindless flak.

Who said anything about computer controlled ignitions?? This subject is about a known deficiency in mopar electronic ignition systems used on cars built from the 60's thru the eighties. Pictures tell a thousand words.

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I'm still looking for "the proof." For example, quite a few modern vehicles have been built with crank triggered, computer controlled ignition WHICH IS THEN FED through a distributor WITH A LOCKED ADVANCE. This means that WHATEVER the computer does to the ignition advance, THE ROTOR DOES NOT CHANGE and therefore THE PHASING MUST CHANGE over the range of the advance. So let's say that the advance range in the computer is something, say, 10-50*. That's a spread of 20*, the center of which is 30* at the crank. THIS MEANS that if you phase the distributor at 30* crank degrees advance, the rotor phasing WILL STILL CHANGE by plus and minus 20 degrees!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I admit fully that I haven't researched these types of problems, but neither has the original poster---who hasn't posted on shread of dyno or oscope or mileage proof that this is an important or prevelant problem. All I know is, my Ford Ranger has the above listed type of distributor--and it doesn't seem to have problem tracking the cap!!! It doesn't exhibit poor mileage or driveability problems. I ran old Mopars thousands of miles, and I know a cap tracking problem when I see it.

The original poster is making statements like "your car will run better". Well fine---if it does, you should be able to prove it. You should be able to take an example car and show some 0-60 times, or mileage change, or something to back up your claims.

The question STILL in my mind is, "is this a problem" or "is this a PERCEIVED problem?"

(This would not be the first time that a bunch of sheep have run off a cliff.)

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You really need to get a grip on yourself as you have no clue what you are babbling about. The community college near you may offer some basic electronics courses so you can understand ohms law but first you need to be able to add, subtract multiply and divide. Your nonsense is very discouraging to any further information sharing.

Phasing is something that needs to be checked and corrected if it is not correct. A properly tuned engine will have a phased distributor with a custom curve.

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I started to make the custom reluctors to fix a problem that I had with the stroker motor in my car.

What happened with that motor was that when the vacuum advance was activated the rotor phasing would get far enough out of whack that the spark would start jumping to the wrong post and I'd get a severe misfire.

I chased my tail for a long time until I figured out how to test for this condition. Basically I just set the motor at a fast idle and then used a Mityvac to pull a vacuum on the advance canister. As soon as I reached a decent amount of vacuum advance the motor would start to misfire.

To fix it I remachined the reluctor so that the initial rotor phasing was to one side of the post and full vacuum adavance put me on the other side of the post. Basically I just split the difference. That solved the issue and the misfire condition went away.

I then started to sell the remachined reluctors but eventually the supply for them dried up and I got tired of how much work it took to make them. I also got tired of how little people were willing to pay for them and all the experts who told me that they weren't needed so I just stopped selling them.

I still think the re-machined reluctor is an easy solution to a specific problem. I'm not sure why some distributors have the issue and others don't but I do know I've run into the problem before and that it was severe enough to cause significant misfiring.

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i have to agree with everything Andy has stated here. rotor phasing is not something new, we've corrected hundreds of MP, MSD and stock distributors over the years. the correct phasing is exactly as Andy described it above.
i've had engines that ran great at WOT but always had what seemed like a misfire at idle. rotor phasing was so far off that the spark literally couldn't always jump the gap. correcting that condition improved the idle quality evey time.
"bench" testing the phasing is not reliable. it really needs to be done with the engine running.

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The reluctor in our MP distributor already had two grooves machined in it from the factory. DRAM explained to me how to check the phasing, using the hole in cap and timing light trick. It was definitely off on the 383 in our RR. I had removed it to change the pickup coil. I then switched the reluctor to the other slot and it was spot on and the car definitely runs smoother now. The difference was clear, both visually using the timing light and how well the car ran. It was not hard to do, you just need an old distributor cap to sacrifice. It explained the wear on one side of the terminal inside the old distributor cap, instead of the nice even wear shown in the first post.

If you have a MP distributor pull the rotor and look carefully, to see if it has two grooves. If the phasing is off try the other slot before doing anything more elaborate, you might get lucky.

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Mopar reluctors have 2 keyway slots, one is exactly under a reluctor tooth and should say or have a CW rotation arrow on top of the reluctor, this is the LA side. Flip it over and you should see a CCW arrow or CCW pointing at the other slot that is about a slot width off the tooth (to the left of the tooth looking down with the off center slot at 12 o'clock) during production, they might have installed the "universal" reluctor in the wrong position depending on the model of distributor.
As for no other manufacturer addressing this problem, MSD has a 2 part rotor that has the ability to adjust rotor tip position a few degrees either way. They also have a super duper distributor that can adjust every reluctors position. Dont know if it is as offset reluctors or what but I did read it in a press release. FBO states many stock Mopar distributors are as much as 20 degrees out, that is half the distance between contacts!

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FBO states many stock Mopar distributors are as much as 20 degrees out, that is half the distance between contacts!

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Ok Guy's, i just cut a hole in an old cap and followed the MSD instruction's, this is a 318 with a MSD Dist and 6AL. According to the timing light my cap would have to rotate Clockwise 3/16" - 1/4" to make the rotor tip and cap terminal line up. It is sparking on the left side of the cap terminal if you are looking at the side of the cap. I'm guessing this need's to be corrected? Oh the burn mark in the cap terminal is not noticable but the burn mark on the tip of the rotor is obvious, right on the edge of the tip.

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