I've been searching on the lce site and on google without success. I just took appart a spare 1983 distributor that I have and the springs look stretched, I want to know if any of you can tell me where to buy upgraded or replacement springs and maybe some heavier weights as well to play around with the timing curve. I read on another site that the 20r celica distributors have different settings inside and that it is an upgrade on a 22r so if I could find those I'd be happy, thanks!

 

LCE has upgraded curve distributors. Here:
http://www.lceperformance.com/Pro-Di...-p/1081051.htm
They might sell the parts to do this to your own, but I didn't see it on the site if they do.

I also know that NWOR (I don't even know if they're still in business and I heard their customer service went to hell quite a while back) used to have a kit that I know had different springs to recurve your advance. I installed them likely 17-ish years ago and it seemed to make a minor difference.

When I went to the DCOE's, I couldn't run vac advance so I got one of LCE's distributors without vac advance and have been very happy with it (been running it for about 12 years).

Hope this helps some.

 

Thanks bingle! Yes I didn't see it on lce's website either, I think they had it once though! I have 3 distributors, I 've only taken one appart so far, the others are not near me. I was thinking about drilling holes in the spare weights and filling the holes with lead/jb weld of different sizes and try them out what do you guys think?

 

Could work, or could mess it all up, hard to say.
I believe the recurve springs I got were a little lighter pull than stock so it advanced quicker than stock. If I am remembering correctly, that would lead me to believe heavier weights would be what you would want.

Maybe you could give LCE a call and see if it is something they would sell as a kit, especially if some interest could be drummed up on this site. I'm thinking along the lines of how Dave convinced them to put together a de-smog kit.

Just a thought.
Keep us posted on how your engineering project goes.

 

Only reliable way to figure out and/or change distributor advance curves is with a distributor machine.

I used to have such a machine of my own, that came to me from a military surplus auction, of all places. It was a Sun machine painted Navy grey.

I sold it some years ago when I swore off carburetted stuff in favor of computer controlled ignition and fuel managed machinery.

Old school hotrod shops often still have one.

 

See this:
http://www.rockcrawler.com/tours/per...tors/index.asp

 

Thanks guys! what I'll do is contact LCE, I also need to borrow an acurate scale to weigh the weights, I'll drill small holes and add lead to make them just slightly heavier and see how that turns out, maybe it'll work, maybe not, that's part of the fun. I don't plan on changing the distributor at all since I have some kind of strange idea to make a honda obd1/toyota 22r distributor hybrid and run a honda injection and ecu in the future. I just need to find a way to make the distributor spin the other way, maybe with a custom cam and/or distributor gear, but that's a whole other subject. Any other inputs welcome!

 

Here is the e-mail I got from lce:

''The only separate components for distributors we carry will be the vacuum advance diaphragms.''

damn!

 

-IF- the advance weights and springs are accessible like on 60's domestics there's a fairly easy way of making changes, you just have to have one specific tool.
Do you know anybody with a dial back timing light?
You can use those lights to help you plot a curve. It's not 100% accurate but it will work.
You can't have a distributor vacuum advance canister plugged in to a vacuum source when you're doing this.

Before you begin remember it's always good to keep the stock parts and make changes to a different set just in case it doesn't work out like you planned. A trip to a wrecking yard can give you some parts to modify if you can't get what you want from one of the performance shops.

I hope the following makes sense, it's actually pretty easy to do once you've done it.




Get a baseline on how your stock distributor is set up.

With a dial back timing light hooked up-
1. Slowly/smoothly increase the rpm and observe what the mark is doing.
You'll have to keep adjusting the dial on the light in order to keep mark on the balancer readable against the timing tab.

2. Keep slowly raising the rpm and adjusting the timing light until you've come to a point where the mark on the balancer stops moving.
You have now reached your distributors full mechanical advance.
Now hold the engine rpm steady!

With the rpm being held steady-
3. Turn the dial on the timing light so that when it flashes the mark on the balancer is flashing at zero (or wherever you want it) on the timing tab.

3a. Make a note of what figure the dial on the light is at when you reach full advance.
(Wen you know this figure it makes things easier. After a change you simply set the timing light to this figure and rev the engine until the lines are right where they were instead of all the adjusting)


Again with the engine being held steady and the distributor at full mechanical advance-
4. Observe the current rpm reading on a tach (or timing light if it has that option) to inform you when you finally reached full mechanical advance.

Now you are free to make changes with the weights and springs as you wish.






If you end up having a slightly rougher, unsteady idle at least one of your springs is too light, maybe both. Some aftermarket springs (actually most) are inferior to the factory stuff and just don't hold their tension.

.

 

tweaking the advance curve is something that you'd do if the motor was built, but since it's a stock engine, there is nothing to be gained.

disassemble a distributor and clean it up good, make sure that the weights move easily, maybe see if the dealer has some nos distributor springs.