1970 Roadrunner points distributor advice / Vacuum Advance

All,

I am ditching the Mopar Performance electronic ignition. My car is losing spark after running for anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes.

I picked up a Distributor part# 2875731 for a 1969 RoadRunner. The Vacuum Advance cannister is not holding vacuum. I am having problems trying to find the right cannister...

I've tried BWD V192 and BWD V173 which are the same, just different advance numbers on the arm... Attached is the side by side comparison.

Would you guys happen to know the part# for a replacement 'cheap' vacuum advance canister for Mopar Distributor part# 2875731. I found vac control assy's NOS that use part# 2875728, but those are NOS...

If I can't find a replacement vacuum advance canister, would you get a whole/reman distributor? IF so, from whom? The A-1 Cardone part# 30-3187 can be bought for $72.00.. Has anybody had any experience with these?

BWD V192 slant six
BWD V173 318

You need a big block vacuum can

Supercuda,

The O'Reily auto site compatibility lists 140 vehicles for the BWD V192, including Big Block 70 383 RoadRunner, so I'm not to inclined to believe their site. Is there some parts book, or some place to cross reference an aftermarket Big Block part#..

get any BB can & we can fine tune it. More details if you would on what is going on with the electronic setup, we can diagnose/fix it for you. EDIT "any" as in any amt of adv, point/elec do not interchange

Steady 8.5 volts at the coil.
New Mopar Stock Coil. (replacing gm style stock coil from my previous thread. That ballast resistor was bypassed/soldered.)

After my last thread, took a drive and about 15 minutes in lost spark at stoplight on busy road. We bypassed the resistor, by putting tweasers in the 2 wire ends, it fired right up and we got home, about 8 minute drive. Shut it down.

Inspected the black plastic ballast resistor connectors, one connector was loose.. The PO stuffed one of the wires with a spade end in behind the connector, where the plastic was basically holding it tight.. We cut off the black plastic connectors, put on new connectors, after splicing the 2 wires on the new connectors... Thought for sure this was the problem...

then when run car in drive way, runs good for about 5 to 10 minutes, then just dies.

When I put a spark plug testor (inline with one of the plugs) I see good spark when it runs, nice and bright. After 5 to 10 minutes, just dies. Crank car, pops off, then dies. (Seems like ballast resistor)

Resistor measures 1.2 ohms. Has continuity.

Bulkhead wire connector looks good from under the hood, Di electric greased / cleaned connectors.

I ordered 2 resistors from JEGS supposedly 0.8 ohm.. They measure 1.5 ohms out of the box.

The last time right before it dies, after running for about 10 minutes, I touched the chrome box and it shocked me. It is mounted on firewall, with an extra ground strap going to the motor. Ground test, shows strong/good ground on case.

Getting frustrated with the whole setup. About to just buy a RTR Firecore and be done with the resistors/Chrome box.

I don't think the chrome box should shock a person. Called Summitt Racing, tried to exchange, won't with an electronic part, I have to send it in and they test it. At this point, don't want to spend another $60 on the chrome box and have that not fix the problem....

My thought is to put in the points distributor for a test to see if it runs reliably, but now I can't find the vacuum advance canister, nothing is simple so far.

I have everything ready to go.. New hi torque mini starter, new carbonx valve covers, leak free, resealed carburetor accel pump, have my brakes adjusted, was pulling, PO had auto adjuster in wrong way, wheels balanced, car is ready to go, but am having a bear of a problem with this ignition problem...

EDIT:

replaced the pickup coil on the mopar performance distributor also..Forgot that part... Old coil pickup wires looked well used / older.

Are we sure it is electrical? (can you hold the coil wire 1/4" from ground & have someone crank it by jumping the starter relay with key "on" (keeps you on ign 1 run) the minute it dies & see if you have spark?. for ign, As you know the hard parts are the coil/ECU/pickup. we'll assume the coil is good and the wiring/connectors are good. how long must you wait before it will fire back up? More later & others will chime in. I would pull apart & reconnect ECU & pickup connectors (easy to do) & check pickup gap for starters. EDIT just saw your edit material. Can you borrrow another ECU for a quick test (I'm betting on it). any 4 pin ECU will work

Do you have another box you can try? Wouldn't need a chrome one, but any just to see if this solves the problem? Maybe even borrow a box from a member close by?

No , I don't have another box to try. I have the original orange box that the car came with...

in the other thread , there were lots of wiring problems...For example the PO just layed the wires from the module to the dist along the intake, we found 3 spots where the insulation was burned to the metal wire...

I've got a new pickup coil in the distributor, with Relutor properly gapped .008 brass feeler guage.
I've got a new Stock coil
I've got repaired wiring
I've got a new Mopar chrome box (replacing a previous older orange box)
I've got a new ballast resistor with really good connectors.. (Connectors from a modern Ford electrical system that fits really tight on the ballast resistor spade plugs..(Brother is master mechanic at ford dealership)

We've got good connections at the coil

RapidRobert: "when it dies, it takes anywhere from about 5 minutes to 10 minutes to restar/get spark back. It acts like the chrome box has to internally reset itself or something. then we get spark back...we have a home-made spark testor that my brother has.. It has a light on it, runs in-line to the plug wire, so car runs and you can watch spark..

It's all or nothing, when it dies, spark is off.....

I could not find a BWD or Standard Motors Product number. Summit lists one in their house brand but it looks identical.

The problem is the small block rotates one way and the big block the other, so they are not interchangeable, as you found out.

Standard Motors VC188 fits later big blocks but it is for electronic ignition, not sure if that will fit either.

A early thread suggests it could

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/104041/re-vacuum-advance-control.html

Which implies the one on your electronic distributor might fit the points one too

I would not suggest shotgunning parts randomly but the evidence is to some extent pointing to the ECU tho I understand you wouldn't think a "new' box would act up that soon. Yes that inline spark device is gonna go dead as soon as whatever is acting up does so. wish you were closer as I am tripping over used boxes. someone locally has to have one you could borrow

RapidRobert

can you elaborate on this (can you hold the coil wire 1/4" from ground & have someone crank it by jumping the starter relay with key "on" (keeps you on ign 1 run) the minute it dies & see if you have spark?.

Which end of the coil wire, the wire feeding the coil to the distributor cap? Which wire are you talking about? My brother probably understands what you are saying, not sure I do. I can try that.

key "on". pull large coil wire out of dist center cap terminal & hold that end 1/4" from intake (ground). at the starter relay with a screwdriver jump from the large starter relay "batt" stud to the brown wire terminal to energize the starter. see if you get sparks. #1 is to do it within a minute or so of when it dies (some electronics cool off fast). if it sparks then it is fuel related

Don't give up on the electronic ignition.

When it quits is the coil hot to the touch?

RapidRobert,

I did what you suggested, no spark.
I wanted to update this thread for future reference, and thanks for all your help guys!

-I went to O'reilly's and picked up an A-1 Cardone Distributor el-Cheapo just to get the vacuum advance cannister. The Distributor we picked up from the swap meet is for a 1969 RR, 383 Automatic, and that's the same distributor I ordered from O'Reilly's, the vacuum advance cannister matched and installed perfectly.
-We cleaned up the points distributor we picked up at the swap meet, put in new points/condenser and installed.
-Installed a manual choke cable
-I kept buying cheaper ballast resistors, specifically ones that were rated at 1 ohm. When we tested them on the bench, they would be 1.5 ohm cold... I bought a MSD brand ballast resistor part # MSD-8214 and hallelujah, it is rated at 0.8 Ohm, and tested 0.8 Ohm.

-Installed the 0.8 Ohm MSD Resistor.
-Car fired up, timed 36Degrees at 3,000 RPM.
-Car ran around town for about 2 hours no problems.

-It is vapor locking when sitting in driveway running. The heat from the engine is soaking into the fuel line/carb. So, we are going to install that Fuel line insulation on the lines under the hood, check the carb float bowl levels. When driving around, no vapor lock, just when sitting for more than 10 minutes idling....

-My Brother and his friend who does a lot of racing, say the car isn't full power, it's missing a lot of HP's. He says it has a lumpy cam in it. Unfortunately I don't have any documentation from the PO on the cam. I have docs on the restoration, tranny, everything except the cam.
-I think we need to rebuild the Holley 4160. When I looked at the car in April, the PO when we started it, you could really smell a varnishy smell. When you look at the carb, it's black color inside, just looks dirty..

-My brother and his friends think the vacuum secondaries are not coming on fully. has good vacuum at idle.
-They said that the idle is weird. When cold you bump up the idle screw to keep it running, RPM's correct.. Then when it warms up, the idle is faster and you have to almost adjust it down to get it normal idle speed..

I think we'll just rebuild the carb, because I think the ignition is good to go...

In the end, The Mopar Performance Chrome box setup, I was running a Resistor that measured out 1.5 ohms... I never did try the MSD 0.8 Ohms resistor on that setup, because we switched over to the original points distributor, so I can't really say if that MSD 0.8 resistor would have corrected the mopar performance loss of spark?

All the messing around we did/troubleshooting sometimes you get to a point you just want it to run and go on.

My Brother did say, it is a relief to work on these older cars that are so simple to diagnose and work on. The other day he was working on a brand new Hybrid Lincoln MKZ. Front left LED light indicator was out because customer lightly scraped front bumper. He had a book 3 inches deep with electrical info on the car. Just the front bumper has $5,000 worth of sensors and modules in it, so everything is relative boys!

The old distributor is in the front of the picture, it cleaned up pretty good compared to the first pic I posted of it!

pushbutton,

Nope. We touched the chrome box and the coil, and when the spark stops, they are not hot to the touch. I only touched the mopar chrome box 1 other time though... Remember previously I was shocked by it, it hurt, made my hand jump!

I can confirm it was not the ballast ohm reading. my last points ballast I ohmed was 1.6 ohms cold. but you are up & running & making progress so all good. your work bench in the pic, I wish I was that organized!

This is probably not it, but it happened to me once on a 318 points distributor...there was enough slop in the upper bushing that the points cam could move away from the points enough to not open them, instant no spark. It's also a possibility with an electronic unit.

The case of the chrome box shouldn't shock you because it's supposed to be grounded. Maybe it wasn't grounded when it shocked.

The more trouble people have with chrome and orange boxes, the happier I am with my electronic distributor feeding my $40 Ebay MSD 6.

R.

Blazin' Bob, that workbench appears to be a 3M plastic roll around cart, very handy.

My racing partner works part time at a hospital so I have an autopsy guerney table that I use for that & when I told people out here what it was, they stopped coming around (& I added/embellished a slight bit as in I work on people too). I do like my privacy

Ugh,

A few days ago, with the original style points distributor the car ran around for about 2 hours while my brother tested it and adjusted the idle screw and timing etc.. etc..

I Ubered over and picked up the car. We left his house, he followed me home. I was driving and I noticed after a few minutes a miss here and a miss there. I got on the highway and about 2 miles outside of town, it started missing and popping...

I pulled over it pops and sputters and won't stay running.
I called a flat bed and hauled it to my house..
It's firing, sparking, but it seems like the timing is off..

So frustrated. In the basement depressed. Sun is blaring and I should be cruising, yet I screw around, screw around...

Inspected points, they don't have grease on them, or look dirty.. Stuck a piece of paper between them, they aren't burned...

I guess I'll pull a few spark plugs and see what they look like...When you crank on it , it pops off for a few hits, then dies... Acts like the damn timing is way off...

Where would you guys start? I have power to my coil...

this might be a stretch but do you have another condensor handy that you could toss in real quick? EDIT Not suggesting a purchase but do you have another coil you could borrow from one of your other vehicles or from a friend for a day?

I know this is very basic, but is firing order correct? How is condition of the wires? Run in a very dark garage and see if you observe sparks.

RapidRobert you are a genius! Yes, I had 2 spare condensers. 1 from the swap meet distributor and 1 that I already bought. I replaced the condenser and it fired right up!

You made my day brother! (& I needed it cuz it was a bad one)

Nice resolution.