[DeTomaso] Follow-on Duraspark II module?

[B. Seib]

Jerry
I doubt if Duraspark is your current problem.
I suspect it is an unsuitable advance curve in the distributor. It's hard to
give advice on that without being there, but I believe your distributor is
advancing too much too soon. There are a lot of ways to address that,
depending on what the advance mechanism in the distributor is actually doing
now. You should probably have about 12 degrees initial advance and then
adjust the springs, weights and end stops in the distributor to limit the
total to about 34-38 degrees. That means 22-28 degrees in the distributor
advance curve plus the 12 initial. If the distributor advances more than you
need, you'll have to use bushings on the pins or a tack of weld on a stop to
limit the range it to what you need. You must not allow more advance to keep
coming in and cause pinging. That can be very destructive to your engine.
You want to get the advance in as quickly as possible without any pinging
when the engine is hot. It's better to stay a couple of degrees on the safe
side, away from pinging (retarded) if you're not sure. It could be someone
has already put very light springs on the weights in your distributor. If
you have vacuum advance, disconnect it and plug it while you're testing the
curve. Vacuum advance is added on after the initial and curve is set. If the
vacuum causes pinging when you add it back in, you'll need to adjust it or
get an adjustable vacuum advance unit.

Sorry for the long answer. Maybe you should buy Mikael Haas' book. 8>))

Barry



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Jerry Knotts knottsj at galstar.com
Wed Dec 5 16:03:19 CST 2012

Thanks to all for the many replies.  All were helpful.

Went to O'Reily's today and bought a blue strain relief box.  Wired it
with pigtails to fit into the harness on the car.  It starts and runs
the car but exibits the same problem as the "querky" green box.  The
problem seems to be that if the car is set at 10 deg it idles and run
very sluggishly.  If it is set to be responsive it has a preignition
hammer at 2500 rpm and higher, like it is going to swap pistons.  It was
mentioned to met that a swap of the orange and violet stator wires would
cause it to be irradic , but the plug is the some on the new distributor
as on the old and fits into the harness.

Any thoughts other than make the car a static display.

Thanks in advance,
jerry knotts