ajrothm

FYI, for anyone using a Pertronix Ignitor 3 model or the Pertronix Flame Thrower billet distributor (which uses the Ignitor III module). MAKE SURE YOU CHECK AND ADJUST THE REV LIMITER YOURSELF.... These things are sent out with supposedly a 5500 rev limiter pre-set.... However after chasing a nosing over problem in my new 357" sbc, I eventually stumbled across this rev limiter problem. First off, I paid no attention to the fact that the Flame Thrower billet distributor even HAD a rev limiter, once I found out about that, I read that the limiter is preset at 5500.... SO I didn't think it was my problem and my car was nosing over at 4700 or so, and it didn't sound/feel like a rev limiter....It would just nose over, stop revving and sputtered/choked etc. I thought for sure it was a fuel supply issue.

After testing fuel pressure many times and swapping fuel pumps, carbs, etc etc, I still had a serious nosing over issue about 4700 rpms or so. I decided to recurve the distributor and limit the centrifugal advance, upon doing that(it WAY over advanced out of the box), I decided to turn the rev limiter off since I was looking at the module and seeing the adjuster screw. After I put it back together, it pulled clean to 6100 rpms 3 passes in a row....

I have literally worked on this thing for 7 days trying to figure out why it didn't rev, I was just about to pull the valve springs and test them and decided to do this first....

So.....check/adjust your rev limiter because its probably not set right.

I'm posting this for future searchers here that may not be able to figure out why there car won't rev and all of the usual suspects don't pan out....

Les

Wow, what a PITA for you but it could save someone else a lot of time and effort down the road.

Hey Alan, what's the word on your 496? Hoping to hear good news.

ajrothm

They JUST tore it down this week and started cleaning it up. Crank and rods look fine. Bearings were still in decent shape. One cylinder had a little more leakage then the others (14% vs 4%) so they are investigating that.... But basically its going to get a full refreshening, likely bore the cylinders another .010" and custom pistons to true everything up nice and tight. Really the only issue with the engine was valve seals were leaking by and one roller lifter bearing was on the way out. MJ is going to port the heads more and really perfect everything. Probably another month or two it'll be making noise. The car however, will be a bit longer, still stripping paint off of it.

Les

That's a pretty good report overall. I'm sure you'd rather not be into it for a new set of pistons, but at the same time you'll be addressing some smaller stuff that might have cost you down the road had you not opened it up. Good luck with getting it all done, including the new paint.