440 distributor and ignition questons

[subforry]

Hi all,

I have '66 Charger with a '78 440. Seems like some work (intake manifold, cam) has been done to the engine, but I don't know what. Stock heads and headers.

I am working on tuning it to run as best as it can. As part of this I have been trying different timing and checked the distributor. It's a Chrysler induction 2 wire distributor and ignition box unit. I don't know much about these. The vacuum advance seems to (eyeballed it) add about 10 deg and takes over 20 in-Hg to fully advance. To me, the amount of advance seems low and the amount of vacuum seems high. The mechanical advance seems to add about 18ish degrees, which also seems low.

Did this car originally come with points or ignition box? As a sanity check, are any of these components notoriously faulty or become problematic as they age? In other words, should I be making upgrades or keep working with what I have?

Thanks.

 

[Kern Dog]

The electronic ignition system wasn't introduced until 1972 or 1973 from what I have heard. It was a common thing for people to convert the older cars to the electronic system in the interest of reduced maintenance and supposedly higher spark energy.
My '70 was a points ignition 318 model originally. In 2000-2001 I swapped in a 440 and converted to electronic.

 

[jimt1971rr]

I’ve been running a similar setup on my car as well as my previous one. If I recall, the vacuum advance has an adjustment via a small hex head screw inside the vacuum canister. It has to be accessed through the port. I don’t know what size Allen wrench it uses, or which direction to turn to increase or decrease. This can probably be looked up.
As far as failure points, the boxes do sometimes fail as well as the ballast resistor.

 

[subforry]

Thanks. I will run what I have and look into adjusting the vac advance amount. It's happy at 20 deg at idle and I need to run more tests for cruise and WOT.

 

[lewtot184]

look to see if the distributor has a metal tag attached. if so give us that number.

 

[owwwch]

Just installed the electronic ignition in mine. Super easy. I am however going to switch over to pertronix for simplicity and getting rid of some of the wires.

 

[1967coronet]

The advance plate in my distributor is a
9.5 or a( 19 total ) so your mechanical advance number is possible.
Good plate to have , you don't have to weld on it in most cases.