TheSamba.com :: View topic - Mallory Dual point vs 009.... Better for street car....

Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:54 pm

I just picked up a Mallory dual point distributor. Looks to have very little to no time on it. The inside looks new!! I want to know if it would be a good idea to use it in a street car? Motor has a 009 on it now. The motor I will be putting it in is a 1641 with a Holley Bug Spray with a unknown performance cam. Heads are stock as far as I know. Going for 70's performance style.Will the Mallory be too much for my street car or should I just use the 009. Opinions welcome!!

Moderator please put in Ignition area if this is out of line.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

Rich

Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:08 pm

There is no such thing as too much distributor for the street. There is only what you can afford and not afford. The centrifugal advance curve on a Mallory distributor can be adjusted to suit nearly any engine.

The larger distributor cap of a Mallory distributor can handle higher voltages which will allow you to increase your spark plug gap 16% more than you can with a Bosch small cap distributor, for improved performance.

However, if it is not a vacuum advance distributor, you may have hesitation at part throttle conditions and your gas mileage will suffer. I don't remember if the Bug spray has a vacuum port for a distributor or not.

If you aren't going to use a vacuum advance distributor, you need all the help that you can get to get past the flat spots and hesitation at part throttle conditions. A high energy ignition system with a variable permeability ignition coil and wider spark plug gaps will help.

Scott Novak

Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:43 pm

Anything is better than an 009........

Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:47 pm

sturgeongeneral wrote: Anything is better than an 009........

Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:48 pm

sturgeongeneral wrote: Anything is better than an 009........
I ran a oo9 for a number of years with decent results.

But then that's when they were still made in Germany.

Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:55 pm

Glenn wrote: sturgeongeneral wrote: Anything is better than an 009........
I ran a oo9 for a number of years with decent results.

But then that's when they were still made in Germany.

unfortunately folks feel that a nonstock item should be a bolt on and work just as well as stock... most aftermarket, or "adapted" parts, require some tweaking or modifications to work well... same is true with the 009...

Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:03 pm

Doh, I forgot about the German ones. I sold mine for a decent $35.

Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:39 am

I have a 010 on my engine and one day tried out a mallory duel points distributor I picked up.
Compared to the 010 its sucked noticeable loss of power and very soggy midrange.

I think the mallory has a similar curve to the 009 so there going to act the same, lazy and looses mid range power you could be getting for free.

I could also see on my head temp gauge that due to the spark being late with the mallory the burn was worse and head temps were lower.

Try it an see what the seat of your pants thinks.

Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:54 am

krusher wrote: I think the mallory has a similar curve to the 009 so there going to act the same, lazy and looses mid range power you could be getting for free.
Mallory distributors have whatever centrifugal advance curve someone set. If the curve isn't correct for your engine it's up to you to adjust it as necessary. It's basically the same concept as jetting a new carb out of the box. You need to adjust the centrifugal advance curve to suit your engine at full throttle!

If your Mallory didn't work well it was your fault for not adjusting it.

Scott Novak

Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:13 pm

I have to agree with Scott I have used every damn dizzy you can think of Vacuum or not, even made FI dizzys full mechanical. None came close to the Mallory. Like John of aircooled says it is like having two dizzys.

Jake Raby loves 12 degrees at idle and 28 full and once I set it my idle became like silk and accell is smooth. Being 28 degress at top the engine has much more top end and just keeps going.

Like I said before, my car has about 100k on it and I never thought I would see any better performance. I had the Jacobs Ignition, Duel Dells and the 009 with a Pertronix Ignitor. Not untill I went with the Mallory did it get so much better.

Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:47 pm

Thanks for all of the imput......

This is a mechanical advance model and not a vacuum model.

Can a guy with a little more that bolt on skills dial it in or do I need a pro?
Dialed the 009 on my 1600 ok..

Rich

Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:48 pm

One of the problems with the 009 is that it achieves it's two stage advance curve with cam action and there aren't readily available spring kits to adjust the curve. It is limited to a two stage advance curve.

Mallory distributors on the other hand, achieve their advance curves with springs. Depending on which pairing of springs that you use, you can have either a single stage advance curve or a two stage advance curve.

Most people seem to be using the single stage advance curve using a pair of grey springs. With the newer H suffix Mallory distributors, setting the maximum advance limit is done by loosening two screws, making and adjustment and tightening the two screws. You can adjust from between 0 and 28 degrees maximum advance without having to bend or grind anything.

And you can't get by the fact that the wider spacing of the Mallory distributor cap allow for up to 16% wider spark plug gaps than you can use with the Bosch small cap distributor, for improved performance.

When someone asks whether a Bosch or a Mallory advance curve is better, the answer is that the Mallory can be adjusted for nearly any advance curve that you need.

Scott Novak

Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:26 pm

Does the same apply to the old school dual point ones like the OP has?

Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:30 pm

Mallory part #2554101...

Does the part number age the part as well? Would love to know how old it is.

Rich

Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:49 pm

Mallory part #2554101 would be considered a vintage distributor. This has the YL advance system and it should use the #29015 spring kit. This allows you to set up either a single stage advance curve or a two stage advance curve.

As old as that distributor may be, it should be disassembled, cleaned and relubed. Mark the advance springs and spring perches that the springs were mounted on, so the advance curve doesn't change when you reassemble the distributor.

You will need to graph your advance curve. This is easy if you have a tachometer and degreed pulley. Without a degreed pulley you will need a dial back timing light and a tachometer.

One word of caution, after you remove the drive dog, carefully examine the end of the distributor shaft. Mallory often times stakes the shaft and if you don't stone off the raised burr on the distributor shaft, you will damage the bushings when you remove the distributor shaft.

Scott Novak

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:08 pm

Scott Novak wrote: There is no such thing as too much distributor for the street. A high energy ignition system with a variable permeability ignition coil and wider spark plug gaps will help.

Which begs the question- if a Comp 9,000,000,000 distributor with Uber wide terminal spacing and a Jacobs box isn't 'enough for the street', then WTH are the real racers to do? Surely they need something better than those wimpy small cap distributors and 'not approved by Mr. Gasket Co.' ignition boxes. This sh!t never freaking ends.... :roll:

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:10 pm

I know there are many who drag race with a OO9, and win. Seriously, it's true.

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:12 pm

Glenn wrote: I know there are many who drag race with a OO9, and win. Seriously, it's true.

But that can't be Glenn, they aren't using a Novak coil or a Comp 9,000,00,000 distributor!!! You're such a liar, I thought I could trust you... :evil:

Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:16 am

[quote="miniman82"] Scott Novak wrote: There is no such thing as too much distributor for the street. A high energy ignition system with a variable permeability ignition coil and wider spark plug gaps will help.
Nice misquote taken out of context and recombined to mislead, you troll.

What I actually wrote:
Scott Novak wrote: If you aren't going to use a vacuum advance distributor, you need all the help that you can get to get past the flat spots and hesitation at part throttle conditions. A high energy ignition system with a variable permeability ignition coil and wider spark plug gaps will help.
58lolight was looking for information about a street vehicle. He was given advise on how to compensate for a centrifugal advance only distributor that does not produce the optimum spark timing at part throttle conditions.

miniman82 wrote: Which begs the question- if a Comp 9,000,000,000 distributor with Uber wide terminal spacing and a Jacobs box isn't 'enough for the street', then WTH are the real racers to do? Surely they need something better than those wimpy small cap distributors and 'not approved by Mr. Gasket Co.' ignition boxes.
Actually, the Comp 9000 distributors WERE designed for racing, and Mallory now makes a Comp 9000 distributor to fit 4-cylinder air cooled VW engines, just like the ones that I have been modifying. If you want to talk about what racers actually use, you'll find that a number of them have used the older vacuum advance only distributors with wider caps in which they have pinned the distributor shafts. I'm not the first person to suggest and use a distributor cap with wider terminal spacings.

Neither am I the first person to suggest the use of larger spark plug gaps. The Legendary Smokey Yunick liked to use 0.075" spark plug gaps with an ignition system that could fire them.

Glenn wrote: I know there are many who drag race with a OO9, and win. Seriously, it's true.
All that winning a drag race proves is that you did one less thing wrong that the guy you were racing against that day.

But the fact is that in many respects, the ignition requirements for drag racing are not as critical as a street vehicle. There is so little time spent at part throttle while drag racing that most racers don't worry about it, and you can get by without a vacuum advance. There is less variation in engine conditions so you can more closely optimize your ignition system for the more narrow range of engine conditions. An adaptive spark ignition system isn't as critical for drag racing as it is on the street.

However, even if you use the stock spark plug gap of 0.025", with a compression ratio of 11:1 and a higher volumetric efficiency, you can easily have more than 50% more voltage inside the distributor cap. As a result, the the safety margins inside the small distributor cap are reduced. A wider distributor cap will increase the safety margins and also allow you to use larger spark plug gaps for improved performance.

You will still have superior performance drag racing when using a huge distributor cap, a high energy ignition system with a variable permeability ignition coil and huge spark plug gaps. You can argue that the performance gain isn't worth the cost if you like. But very few people racing VWs have EVER used a Comp 9000 distributor on an ACVW, so how would they even know?

On the street your engine goes through wildly varying engine conditions, which causes huge variations in ignition lag, which results in less than optimum ignition timing. With a conventional ignition system, a weak ignition coil and small spark plug gaps, you will in fact be operating with RETARDED ignition timing much of the time, as a conventional ignition system is unable to compensate for the variable ignition lag. Your performance suffers.

Scott Novak wrote: There is no such thing as too much distributor for the street. There is only what you can afford and not afford.
And I stand by this statement. Using a distributor with a huge terminal spacing will NEVER hurt your performance. Using a distributor with small terminal spacings WILL hurt your performance.

Scott Novak

Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:43 am

Scott Novak wrote:
And I stand by this statement. Using a distributor with a huge terminal spacing will NEVER hurt your performance. Using a distributor with small terminal spacings WILL hurt your performance.

Scott Novak
The first part is true... the second part is not.

The second part implies that switching to a larger cap distributor with wider spacing WILL improve performance. I'd like to see proof of that. Take a bone stock 1600DP with a 34PICT-3 and show me that just switching to a distributor with the same characteristics as a 0 231 170 034 (stock vacuum/mechanical) but has a larger cap will improve the performance without changing to a box or adding anything else.

If I quoted you out of context, please correct me.