Electronic ignition upgrade

[Tony Wheeler]

Sorry Colin, I assumed the motor was the one with the new timing gear. I should have known you'd be on top of things! Nice job on the spacer BTW, I had a lot of trouble finding one last year. No one had ever heard of them, until finally I got onto Mike Davidson of Flatattack Racing in SA, who still had one lying around. I have an earlier type on another motor, it's cast alloy and shaped like the gasket. No doubt these were common in the '40s and '50s for rodders converting to crabs. I haven't come across the button extension before but I knew of their existence. They'd be quite rare I imagine, as very few rodders would swap a crab dizzy for a divers helmet. I suspect they were used when fitting a post-42 race camshaft into a pre-42 motor. I notice there's a stamping on the nose of that particular camshaft, which is what the racers did when they ground special cams. They used their own codes so no one knew what grind they were running! I wonder if it's a reground camshaft, they often made their way through several race motors as each one blew up!

[Lew Skelton]

Funny how things happen at the same time either side of the Tasman! I picked up a mallory electronic ign kit from an ex army landrover v8 a while back, i was looking at it and thought that with a bit of jiggery pokery it could be made fit into my crab dizzy, so pictures would be handy at this point but buggered if i can find the camera. Basically i cut the head off the landrover dizzy turned the housing down slightly on the lathe at work, cut the shaft and slotted it into the crab housing. Ill track down the camera and post some photos.

[Lew Skelton]

I finally found a camera, also basically finished the dizzy. I had to limit the total advance as it was about 24 deg. Fitted and test run today, ill need to tidy up the leads but otherwise sorted. Here is a pic of it in the vice prior to fitting.