MSD Rotor phasing

[Eljaro]

Originally Posted by RodKnock View Post
Here's a dumb question. How does one know if he or she has a "crank trigger" system? I'm running a 8594 MSD Billet distributor and a MSD Digital 6 ignition, but now I'm curious, and would like to check my rotor phasing and I know that "crank trigger" systems are treated differently according to the MSD instructions.

The 8594 Distributor has the trigger system inside, which is the magnetic pickup and the reluctor which give the signal. The cable coming out goes to the MSD box.
The problem here is that MSD is supposed to deliver the distributors with the mag pickup properly aligned so as to produce a spark when the rotor point is perfectly aligned with the corresponding post in the distributor cap.

In my case and probably in some others the rotor point and the post in the cap do not align when the spark jumps and that created some disturbing hesitation at full advance, because as I have seen while checking the problem and the spark, the spark jumps at the leading edge of the rotor point at idle but changes to the trailing edge when rpm rises.
Anyway, the only thing you can do without having to purchase the MSD rotor phasing kit (they make it because some problems with rotor phasing DO ocurr) is to move the magnetic pickup in the opposite direction of the position of the rotor towards the cap post. You have to remove the glue MSD puts between the mag pickup and the distributor housing and you can move the pickup slightly back and forth, which is what I did and solved the problem. Now the point and post aligh perfectly and the hesitation is gone. You can check that also with the timing light, as the timing will get erratic at full advance.
If you have crank trigger the problem is solved just by moving the trigger in relation to the magnet and /or rotating the distributor.

So checking the distributor phasing with a cut up cap is not to be excluded if you have some hesitation problems, which also show up if under your timing light the mark on the crank pulley is not absolute steady at full advance.