Distributor cap and engine miss

[Rick Parker]

I am posting this and asking if others have had similar experience or occurance. Recently I purchased a new "Red" distributor cap to replace the black one the black one that the "Small Diameter Billit" distributor that I have used sucessfully for a few years. I did not have an opportunity to drive the car again untill several days later. At that time the ignition began missing severely and would not go past about 5200 RPM under full throttle. I then changed plugs, same problem. So after much frustration I began looking at the inside of the distributor and checked some dimensions. Here is what I discovered: As the rotor tip passes each of the contacts inside the "NEW RED"distributor cap it is .135 below the end of each one, instead of passing approx half way up the length of each contact as is normal design practice. To validate my concerns I replaced the cap that I had taken off and the miss was no longer present. ...hhhhhmmmm.
I called the "Red Cap" tech line and described my ignition miss & asked if they felt the problem could be caused by the above. They began to ask if the cap had any signs of "carbon tracking", then asked about the grounds being used, and said the voltage will seek the ground with the least resistance (different plug out of sequence etc). went on to say "Our testing showed the dimensions did not affect performance" hmmmm. He didn't want to consider there was a potential design problem at all. If reinstalling the original cap did not eliminate the miss I would still be searching for the problem (there weren't any problems before). What I wanted was a cap made of better material.

Have any of you experienced an ignition miss such as this after switching to this particular cap on your Billet small diameter distributors. Overall the product is of the highest quality I just think there is a problem with this cap and rotor combination. I have also verified the compatability of part numbers used and they are what is called for. I like the new cap and its material but can't accept this performance drop.


Rick

[G.R.]

I had a problem with the first "Red Cap" on my billet dist. But I installed the "Large Red Cap" type dist. on my 289. Called and they sent a new cap--no problems since. No charge for the cap either.
I know it probably doesn't help you just a FWIW