I'll appologize now to the dial up guys!! :)

I've had the EI dizzy to upgrade the 521 for awhile now. I finally took the time to check out/clean up the dizzy and make sure it would work when I put it in. The dizzy was in pretty good shape, so for now, I'm not going to put up any pics of the dzy tear down and check.

First...I wanted to make sure that it actually worked! Hook a meter(dig or analog) across the two terminals of the matchbox. Spin the shaft and you should get a voltage jump. It will be a small jump(mine went to 3mv), but it doesn't need much. It will say "0" when it's not turning. You can check the pickup coil the same way on the remote style dzy. The box is actually just an electronic switch to open/close the circuit to the coil so it can charge/discharge like it did with the points. The movement of the rotor past the stator induces a voltage....yada, yada.....I guess we'll skip that part and get on to the install, since that's where most of the grief is.


Might as well buy/make the new gasket while you're at it.


Wiring it is the easy part. The wire that connected to the points dzy connects to the "C" on the box. If you have dual points, use the primary points wire since the other goes through a relay and is only connected at certain times...and none of those times are when you're trying to start it!! :) The "B" wire gets a constant 12vdc. I ran a new wire from the white ceramic resistor...not the side that connects to the dist! That side is after the voltage drop...we want a full 12volts. I already had one on my points dist because it's just a good idea, but you'll want to make sure you have a ground wire running from the dzy body to chassis ground. Over the years, all the oil and such can make for a poor connection between the dzy body and the eng block. EI or points, you need to put in a dedicated ground wire to the dzy body!!! The whole debate over whether you keep the resistor or not is determined by your coil. If you take a meter and read across the + and - terminals(primary winding) and get 1-2 ohms, you need the resistor. If it's up around 4 ohms, you don't...it's built in to the coil. If you pulled the coil with the dzy when you got it check the manual on the vehicle you pulled from. Some vehicles used a resistance wire so it won't show a resistor. Usually, it says right on the side of the coil anyway. Most of the after market coils require a small resistor too..go by their specs. It all depends on just what you're using. You're the one who's going to have to buy a new coil....so if you want to take it out...go right ahead!! :)   

I put the dzy in...no prob. The problem came when I tried to start it...go figure! Way too retarded(like me!!) and even advanced as far as the plate would let it turn, it still barely ran. So, the first two pics are of the full range of motion with both bolts loosened up. That's the 10mm holding the plate to the base, and the 8mm holding the plate to the dzy(up underneath).



I thought I had "eyeballed" the new dzy and it looked like it would line up perfectly. Look at the lines in the next pic. You'll see I have the dzys lined up....the caps are clocked differently!!!! There's the reason so many people have grief when they put them in...okay...it's only one of the reasons. You'd think that having the matching base for the dzy would eliminate that prob....it didn't.


I have at least two EI dzys so I compared them. The boxes are on different sides. These two pics show the difference, but they're not extremely relevant.



So I started checking out different pedastals and plates. Since I don't know what they came out of, this is more for comparison than anything else. Sorry, I can't just say "Get a '80 pedastal with a '78 dzy and it will work perfect"....no free lunch!! :) All 3 peds are clocked differently and notice the one in the middle...the distance out to the hole is shorter.


Here's the two different plates I had. I thought at least one would work...not! I even tried moving the wires 90 deg to see if that would get it in range. No luck.


The bottom plate might have come close, but the distance for the 8mm body holddown was not right. I have a couple of trashed plates that someone ground to make work...not how I wanted to do it!!


So I put the plate in with only the 10mm holdown bolt, then timed the dzy and marke on the plate where it was supposed to be and where the holddown bolt was in reference to the dzy body. You can see that it's just out of range.


So I cut out a piece of cardboard and put it in, in place of the plate. The black marks are the dist positions when it's timed correctly. There's two because one is with the original position on the wires and the other, I moved the wires one hole to make fabricating the plate easier.




Comparing my cardboard mockup and the two plates, you can see that neither would have worked.


So I drew an outline, cut out the cardboard, then put it back in to double check it.




I then transferred it to a piece of scrap metal the same thichness as my plate. Used a hole saw in to get the hole close, then a die grinder to ream it out a bit. Drilled multiple holes for the slots, cut between them with the airbody saw, then filed them out. Not as pretty as I would have liked, but man was I in a hurry...had to go to work and the rig had no dist in it!! The finish on it is from the sandblaster...it will be rust soon enough since I didn't have time to paint it :(





Hope that helps. At least you'll be more preparred than I was!! It took a couple of hours to do all this. No, I'm not going to be making plates....too time consuming (but not necessarily difficult) to do by hand. When my drafting brd is setup, I'd like to draw up a really nice template to share...or maybe even check into have them laser cut some where. They'd still probably be about $15-20. I know if I were to hand cut any, they be $20!! Ummm....don't take that as an offer to make any....cause it would take weeks before I'd get around to it!!

hhmmm....what else could I have gotten done in the last couple of hours that it took to make this post??!! :)

Looks like one of those dists is a 1980 NAPS-Z dist with the wrong base on it; probably a remote-type EI dist base. I put a '79 matchbox one in my '78 4X4 with the correct base and it worked fine, but the wires were now 45 degrees from where they were with the remote ignitor dist.

The plate with the "short" 8mm holddown is the one off the stock, small-cap dist, correct? That's one reason you can't swap bases, since the plate won't find a place to lock down. And even then, there's no guarantee. I swapped out the dual-point dist on my '72 wagon for a "SSS" type dist (also small cap) with a Pertronix and the wires were about 170 degrees off the original position (not quite 180).    

Ya I guess I got lucky. I took the diz complete off a 1979 truck it and it bolted on my '76 and it fired up. *whew!*

I can't wait to change mine, I can't stand points...

Thanks for letting me know what to look out for

Sweet!! I guess with what you save on gas now, you'll be able to afford an EI dizzy :)