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A friend of mine just bought this 73 from California and brought it over to show it off, I spotted this odd firing order and plug wiring, didn’t remember ever seeing this before. Does anyone know anything about this?
The wires at the dist. cap don't match the firing order. The are arranged on top of the cap so that they don't cross over, but are internally wired to match the correct firing order.
It is also very common to install the timing gears and chain 180 degrees out.
The easy way to fix it is to wire the distributor accordingly and the plug wires will look weird.
It is completely okay to wire, set up the distributor and set the timing 180 out, as long as you remember it was done that way.
If I remember correctly #1 in the firing order will actually be in the #6 position.
The wires at the dist. cap don't match the firing order. The are arranged on top of the cap so that they don't cross over, but are internally wired to match the correct firing order.
Thanks Sayfoo, I will take the cap off and see how it is crossing over, and try to get a picture and post also,
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Doesn't make sense because the firing order is 18436572....some how 3 and 2 are swapped or 1 and 6 are swapped. There's now way to get all 4 cylinders on one bank to be wired together like that. Unless he ran wires across behind the block where they aren't seen.....
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Originally Posted by Sayfoo
The wires at the dist. cap don't match the firing order. The are arranged on top of the cap so that they don't cross over, but are internally wired to match the correct firing order.
That makes no sense. Are you saying someone manufactures a cap that runs the wires so they fire in a different order?
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Holy ****. Learn something new everyday. They are called a crossfire distributor cap. It is manufactured to allow you to arrange the wires in order to keep it neat and clean looking. Found them for HEI but not for a center tower cap... amazing. Those will screw up someone not knowing that is a specialty cap
The actual wiring is hidden inside, under the cap. I don't believe you can see or photograph the routing of the connectors. All you should see is 8 terminals protruding.
Jegs & Summit have been selling these for over 15 yrs. Almost bought an Accell HEI cap myself. Strictly for appearance, not a performance upgrade.
But then, thought about the burden of tracing a plug wire.
Very cool though. Gives a clean, organized Hot Rod look to a usual mess of wires.
And is a great conversation piece at the car show.
I’ve considered getting one for my car. $35 for the red accel version or $85+ for a factory looking black one. Not really worth it in my opinion when a regular new cap is only about $20.
You have to custom make your spark plug wires if you want them all to line up nicely, which I imagine you would, hence buying the “corrected” cap. Which means that they won’t fit on a conventional firing order cap.
Therefore if your cap goes out far from home you’ll be stuck looking for another “corrected” cap to replace it. Most parts stores only sell the regular caps, and even that number is going down year after year.
They do look very cool though, so I understand the desire to have one. Just not worth the cost and amount of worrying in my opinion. I’d tell him to buy another cap in the same style and keep it in the back of the car just in case.
this isn’t BS? How does that work? It must be all electronic!?
Here's a pic of the underside of one such crossfire cap. You can see the routing to each location for the proper firing order (didn't check to see if this is our old-school GM order or not).
[QUOTE=67:72;1608232408]Here's a pic of the underside of one such crossfire cap. You can see the routing to each location for the proper firing order (didn't check to see if this is our old-school GM order or not).
Thanks for the verification, I was sure this was BS, in high school was trained as a mechanic, but I only work on my own stuff, 67 now, obviously not up-to-date on all this “new” stuff. It does look cool and help organize everything ,like bikespace said learn something new every day
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1973 Odd firing order/plug wiring
