anyone have any experience with this distributor?

I found this thread on the samba but would like a "tommiebsmith" explanation on the advance system this uses

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewto ... istributor

What do you not understand? seems pretty simple to me.

your starting number plus the advance spring you use equals total advance.

the springs adjust the advance rate, ie how many degrees the distributor advances per increase in RPM. The stops adjust the total change in advance. I can do that with my Mallory in much the same way. I have mine set to advance like 20 degrees per 1000 RPM and a max advance change of 22 degrees. So with my advance at idle set at 10 degrees, I'm at 32 degrees (the initial 10 + the added 22) by about 2100 RPM since it starts advancing after about 1000 rpm. The RPM it starts advancing at is controlled by the pre-tension on the springs.

Yea.. I hadn't seen the tech sheet for the pertronix setup and a max of 20 seems a little disapointing..

BRIAN is right with his statements...

although I didn't see what springs do what to know what choices they offer..

the MSD distrubtor has 4 total bushings and allow for 18-21-25 and 28 degrees.. which says it would work well on TYPE 4 motors also with the 28 installed.. as well as all type 1 motors no matter what setup or enviroment it is in.


but as for the pertronix setup it is a little lacking but is "OK" -- Glenn states that the system doesn't let you know what springs do what and you'd have to have to a machine to verify..

I think that is a statement... what kind..?? not sure.. I spring tuned mine to my driving habits..
I found a timing that the car loved and ran strong and cool at.. and then drove through out the route I take in my town quite a bit.. what it was -was a long hill that caused a heavy load on the motor at a lower RPM..This will make pinging or preiginition show up when the motor is being asked to do something and the advance may be too much at that certain RPM... or you may get some bucking or a heavy power drop off at the same time is you don't have enough advance.. So what I had was a loose spring.. that caused the advance to come on to strong at 22krpm (my personal experience) so I put a stiffer spring that gave me a slower tighter curve.. so 2-2.5krpms was backed off a bit and allowed the motor to perform well with out pinging..


This was just an example of playing with your springs and bushings to get your car dialed in to where you live and how you drive it..
consider people who live in higher alt.they will tune far different than those who are sea level and those who only race will certainly tune completely different than those who daily drive theirs.