There was a bit of rust on one of the springs and between the weights. Enough to possibly have prevented the weights from fully retracting at idle, so I replaced the spring with a fresh light blue spring from the stockpile and wiped everything down with some lube. Also decided to replace the small red bushing with the large black bushing in order to limit total advance while I was in there.
Noticed the Holley carb was still leaking fuel from the front bowl even after I tightened the bowl screws before our recent ride. Looks to be the accel pump that’s leaking, so I ordered new pump diagrams and bowl gaskets that will hopefully solve that leak.
Since I was knee deep in distributors and carbs already, I decided to get on with the planned distributor swap for the GT. The Ford Racing 392w stroker crate motor came with the very large diameter cap MSD (PN 85840), which is pushed right up against the firewall/bulkhead. Not a good situation. Pictures below after I resize them.
Tom graciously provided me with a small cap MSD version (PN 8578) he had sitting in his garage with a recently installed steel drive gear perfect for my application. I owe you a bottle of single malt for that Tom…
Popped the large one out with less effort than I was expecting due to the limited clearance as installed, and dropped in the smaller replacement without a hitch.
Since that was the first look I’ve had inside the distributor on the GT, I was curious to see how it was setup in regards to the advance curve. Surprisingly, it had the smallish silver bushing along with the two heavy silver springs. Not at all appropriate for this motor, which needs light springs
(1 lt blue and 1 lt silver) to allow advance to be all in at 2500 and the large black bushing to limit advance to 18 degrees. Now the Cobra and the GT are setup with the same curves as appropriate for very similar engine configs.
According to Ford docs, this crate motor made best power (430hp/450tq) at 32 degrees total. That means initial advance needs to be 14 degrees, which I will set after I complete the install and fire it up. That may be a few days, or a week, since I managed to roll my ankle yesterday on the golf course and sustained a hobbling injury…
