[DeTomaso] Ignition truble

[Mike Vallee]

Hi,

I had the exact same symptoms while diving to Las Vegas for this year's Fun Rally. I also have an MSD billet
distributor and 6AL box for the ignition. Four hundred miles into my trip it started running very poorly and
backfiring like crazy. This left me stranded at the side of the road in a small town where I knew no one.

A bunch of the NorCal Pantera Club (PCNC) guys came to my aid and spent the day troubleshooting my car.
They found a number of things that looked like they could have caused the problem, but none of them fixed
the backfiring and poor running. This very knowledgeable group included  Mike Drew, Larry Finch  and  Marcus
Smith among others. After spending *all day* and half the evening working on my car (incredibly good folks) it
was clear that it was not going to Vegas that day. I pretty much had to force them to go on without me as it went
against the "Leave no man behind" credo of PCNC, POCA and it seems, Pantera owners everywhere.

Even after dropping me back at the local hotel Marcus kept working on my car, stranded now in his garage. It was
after midnight when he called me up and said "I found the problem". It turned out to be a *very* badly worn 
distributor gear. The MSD billet distributor comes with a bronze gear that can wear down very quickly when mating 
up with a new cam gear. According to MSD (and other sources), the first such bronze gear can wear out in the first 
1000-2000 miles. The second one will last nearly forever (their words, not mine). Check yours out. The gear teeth
are normally about 3mm wide. Mine had worn down to knife edges.

Anyway, the following morning Marcus drove me the 60 miles back in to Sacramento to get a new gear and spent 
the rest of the day installing it, timing the car etc. With the gear replaced the car ran perfectly once more. After all
the time spent by others to get me there I couldn't not continue on to Las Vegas and so set out the following morning
and made it down only a day late.

I can't thank the PCNC folks enough for getting me past my Ignition Trouble, and down to Vegas.

Cheers,

--mike v        #5473

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Hi!
On my first drive this summer with my Pantera it started to misfire and lost power.  
Tried to change the spark plugs and the cables but same result.  On friday we checked 
the ignition timing and it showed 0 degrees.  I don`t understand that because the 
distributor was not loose and we timed it to 30 degrees when we had it in the dyno last year.  
We timed it back to 30 degrees and it became better but I can feel it is something wrong 
when I drive it.  It has not full power and has a small klicking sound in the left exhaust.
I run it with an MSD Billett distributor and a MSD 6AL
 ignition box.
Can it be the distributor pin who is giving up slowly?
Anybody??

J.C