I'm driving home the other night, and I decided to open it up. In second gear at about 4500 RPM with my foot on the floor, the engine starts backfiring like crazy. Then it just died and would not start up again. I got the car towed home and started checking my ignition. My ignition setup is:

-MSD Pro-Billet distributor w/mechanical advance
-MSD 6AL box
-Taylor 8mm wires
-AC Delco plugs gapped at .050"

I did all the test procedures with the 6AL that I could to discover that the problem was in the distributor. I popped the cap off only to find that little round piece that sits right under the coil terminal on the cap had fallen off and was laying on the metal tab on the rotor. It was very corroded and was black in color. The rotor was also very black. The thing that gets me is all this stuff is only 2 months old?? Would would cause the cap and rotor to go that quickly?? Thanks in advance.

 

A while back i read that when your have a MSD box that sometimes they want you to drill 2 holes in the top of the distributor cap to let it cool off and so you dont get carbon build up. I think it was on the MSD site it was in one of there PDF files.

 

if the rotor was not pushed down all the way and seated firmly, it will come loose and tear up the rotor and cap..

 

Was your cap on al the way?? My Dist cap was not tight once and the center of the cap melted onto the rotor and the rotor melted.

 

MSD puts out two different rotor bushings (the little round thing with the spring under the coil on coil under cap cars) one is a low resistance bushing which I've been told you should be running when installing an MSD ignition box. The low resistance reduces heat and therefore allows your parts not to melt. My suggestion is to make sure that this is what you have under the cap and not the regular bushing. The low resistance bushing is a silvery pewter color while the normal bushing is black. I'm about to finish the ignition on my 83 TA next weekend and apparently if you don't have the low resistance rotor bushing your cap and/or rotor can melt. So check that out, I hope it helps.

 

Thanks for the replies. The cap was on tight, and the rotor was down all the way. I'm going to check into that bushing.

 

hey....call MSD and also send them an e-mail. They should be willing to send you the parts u need INCLUDING a new cap and rotor on the house. Ya know, MSD is one of the LAST remaining companies out there that really have there act together IMO. I've dealt with them and they are "good to go". Please let me know if they extend u this courtesy...I am curious if they only do things like that b/c of names or if they do it for all there customers LIKE HOW ITS SUPPOSED to be.

Also, Autometer is another like MSD....expensive, but geez theyve saved my butt when it needed some serious saving

 

Well, I called MSD. I figured out I didn't bend the tab on the rotor up far enough to touch the button on the underside of the cap under the coil terminal. The spark had to jump through the air, which burnt everything up. I'm guessing this killed my performance too. Thanks again.

 

I had the same thing happen to me; see pics at http://www.geocities.com/tomp_3rdgen/burnt-cap.html - I had seated the rotor down all the way, too. The MSD tech seemed to think I should've pulled the rotor "up" a little higher so it could make better contact with the cap.

So much for me trying to not use an Accel cap, and go with GM instead. (MSD doesn't make a cap for my 2.8l v6 with remote hei... what a shame.)

Oh the errors on that page aren't mine; they're geocities' errors.