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b18/b20 mallroy dizzy vs stock?

Jack

junkman
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
Location
The Ass Cheek Of History
any advantage in using a Mallroy unilte dizzy on a B18/b20 vs stock other than bling and no points ?

Thanks
Jack

aQ23Cl8h.jpg
 
It used to be bling, nowadays doesn't even wiggle the needle on the bling meter.

Max bling is a crank trigger or,
Get a Yoshi Fab CAS adapter and a VW coil and do wasted spark. Ooops you'll need a few more parts unless you inject it.
The single coil of a distributor ignition limits the amount of spark energy you can put across the plug gap.

Looks like you already have the Mallory distributor, so your best avenue is to get a Mallory CD box or a MSD to fire a matching hot coil.
 
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I'm using an old Mallory dual point distributor body on my PV's motor. It has more adjustability in the advance curve. You can move the weights on the arms, and (IIRC) move where the springs attach.

Still not enough total advance for the way my motor works, though. I have to balance it between retarding it some to enhance low RPM torque and advancing it some to enhance high RPM power.
 
It used to be bling, nowadays doesn't even wiggle the needle on the bling meter.

Max bling is a crank trigger or,
Get a Yoshi Fab CAS adapter and a VW coil and do wasted spark. Ooops you'll need a few more parts unless you inject it.
The single coil of a distributor ignition limits the amount of spark energy you can put across the plug gap.

Looks like you already have the Mallory distributor, so your best avenue is to get a Mallory CD box or a MSD to fire a matching hot coil.
While I do have ms setup and yoshis stuff. I think the b18/b20 beauty comes from KISS.

I had an msd box on two cars. I found no difference but had to replace the cap, rotor and plugs 3x as fast


I'm using an old Mallory dual point distributor body on my PV's motor. It has more adjustability in the advance curve. You can move the weights on the arms, and (IIRC) move where the springs attach.

Still not enough total advance for the way my motor works, though. I have to balance it between retarding it some to enhance low RPM torque and advancing it some to enhance high RPM power.

I was reading that about the dual point. Makes sense
 
I used to sell boatloads of unilite distributors. They are very, very sensitive to voltage spikes, and will leave you stranded if it occurs. Best bet is to run the CD box mentioned above to put a limit on those spikes. At a minimum you will need a quality ballast resistor with a new power wire. Don't rely on the factory resistance wire (if the car has that). Just my $.02. They work great if properly installed- no point bounce or wear.
 
Not using the dual point part though, it has a Crane XR700 on it (which is so old it actually says Allison on it).

One of the nice things about that is that it is fairly immune to the modest amount of bearing slop the distributors get after decades and miles. With the old points distributor on it, you could see the timing wiggling around all over the place with a timing light. Which probably, I guess, isn't that big of a deal. +/- 2 or 3 degrees isn't a big deal.

The main issue for me is in removing a maintenance task. As soon as you set point gap (and then timing), then that little block that rides against the distributor points 'cam' starts to wear. Even if you grease it like you're supposed to and no one does. The gap closes, the timing changes, it's jsut another thing that has to be done every 5K miles or so, reset the points gap (matchbook cover is the 'right' thickness!) and then reset timing.

With the optical sensor, I see practically no timing wiggle (granted, part of that might be the distributor body), but just generally, the mechanics of how it works means that tiny wobbles in the shaft are not magnified by the tiny movements of the points. And there's nothing slowly wearing away - if I set the timing and then drive it for 20K miles and check it again, it's exactly where it was. One less periodical tuning task to do under the hood, one less thing always slowly drifting away from proper adjustment.

I used to run an old square Mallory coil with the Crane box, these days I'm using some leftover parts from an earlier iteration of the wagon's turbo motor - an MSD box and an MSD Blaster coil. Which makes some wickedly powerful zaps. I had to replace the rotor after about 8K miles of that - it burned a hole through the center into the distributor shaft. But you can tell a difference (it;s easy to bypass the MSD box part - that ups the voltage to the coil and does multiple zaps) in the way it runs at lower RPM's. Starts more easily, runs a little more cleanly, has a little more pep. Ver little perceptible difference at higher RPM's though.
 
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Good to know this one came with ballast resistor. I’ll look into to the CD box. Anyone recommend?



Edit. Thanks John that makes a lot of sense to put one in. I’m guessing the 142 this came out of ran very well until the cap and rotor basically wore completely out. I’ll post pictures. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the car ... naturally I grabbed almost everything out of it


edit: meow with picture

center is completely gone
ArwvxhVh.jpg
 
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Hyfire 1 is not the same as posted above. The 1A is a cheap box in comparison and capability (power).Also, I would be leary of used "race equipment" unless you can test it. Too many boneheads that really don't know how to wire. Ha
 
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