Hi,

I've put a 'D' cam and a skimmed cylinder head on my B18A. I'm about to put twin SUs on it but I wanted to make sure that I had everything right before changing the carbs so that it'd be easier to sort out any problems if the car wouldn't run properly at that stage. The car originally had a 077 (FUR4) distributor but I was recommended a 003 (JFYR4) as this would suit the cam better and also does not use vacuum advance. I aligned the timing and crankshaft gears properly, set the valve clearances, set the distributor drive gear to the correct position (see Ron's article http://www.intelab.com/swem/Volvo%20Ignition%20from%20Scratch.htm), made sure that the leads were going to the right plugs and static timed it at 20 degrees BTDC. The car will not start using the new distributor with this setup - it doesn't even come close. Having checked everything again (drained and removed radiator to check timing gear position etc etc) it finally occurred to me to check something easy and I put in the old distributor and had no problem starting it.

I had noticed that with the new distributor the rotor doesn't quite point to the plug lead when everything is set the way it should be so I then moved the distributor drive gear more towards the 12 o clock position and put the new distributor back in. This allowed the rotor to point nearer the plug lead on the cap and the car started but the timing was way off.

I would like to use the new distributor because it's not worn like my old one and also there doesn't seem to be any provision for vacuum advance on the SU carbs. Am I missing something obvious or is there a trick to timing with the 003 that I havn't been able to track down?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Aidan


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1967 131, 1969 131