Some time ago I started a project to rationalize and simplify my 1974.5
TR6 engine. The goal was to reduce opportunities for vacuum leaks and
maybe improve performance and appearance slightly. I had the carbs
rebuilt with no vacuum retard port but with a vacuum advance port for
future use and I ran the car like this for a couple of years with the
vacuum retard on the dizzy disconnected and the vacuum advance port on
the front carb blocked off. Engine idled and ran well once adjusted to
compensate for the disconnected retard.
I acquired an early TR6 distributor with both advance and retard units
and replaced the retard unit with a vernier adjuster from another Lucas
dizzy (MG I think). So now I had a distributor that looked like what I
wanted for the end state (TR6, Lucas, tachometer drive, vacuum advance,
no retard, fine adjustment of vacuum advance) and I stripped it and
refurbed it over the winter.
I finally got around to trying this early distributor out and the
experiment failed miserably. First I had to rotate the distributor body
clockwise more than was reasonable to get the engine to idle with 4
degree ATDC timing (advance disconnected). The distributor rotation was
such that the tachometer cable barely connected and it was clearly not
right. Even with the correct timing at idle the engine ran poorly, so
poorly I didn't even venture out of the garage.
Questions:
1. Am I wasting my time because there is no compelling advantage in the
vacuum advance and I should should stick with my original dizzy?
2. If I'm not wasting my time, has anyone done this successfully?
Thanks,
Stan
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