[57custom]

I have been running a crank trigger ignition in my 545 and it works fine. Here's my question I recently lost a roller lifter and it damaged a cam lobe. To get this car on the road for the rest of the season I am putting in a hydraulic flat tappet cam that I have laying around. So rather than take the bronze dist drive gear off my dist I just grabbed an old but real good dist out of my stash. I took the points and everything else out of the dist as the other one wasn't hooked up to anything anyway. I am assuming that this will work. What does the dist do anyway as it is hard for me to understand this. Yes I am going to change the valve spring too. The rason for the cam change is that this winter (Mn guy) I am planning on stepping up this thing a little bit with a new cam and lifters and maybe even some more head work. The SCJ aluminum heads only have a pocket port for now and I am aiming for a 10 flat on pump gas for next year. One more thing what compression do you think this will tolerate for 92 pump gas with a fairly radical cam for next year. It is now 10.2 to1 with diamond dished pistons.

 

[David Cole]

In a crank trigger deal the distributor is only there to distribute the spark from the coil through the rotor to each of the spark plug wires in the correct order. That's why it's not hooked up. No working parts other than the rotor and shaft.

A stock distributor will do what you want, but will have to be modified. You will need to disable the advance mechanism inside. The advance plate has springs and weights that control it. With a crank trigger you don't want that advance. You want locked out timing. Either weld the advance plate (best) or use a small bolt to keep it from moving.

 

[57custom]

I welded it

today and cleaned it up. It is a stock one and seems very solid with hardly any wear or movement. I also filled the 2 holes where the point wire comes out and the hole the vacum advance was attached. It will look a bit cleaner I hope.