Can anybody tell me whether or not it matters where the rotor points when the distributor is dropped into place. I was told that as long as the rotor points to the #1 plug wire on the cap and the #1 piston is at the top that it doesn't matter what position on the cap you start. Is this true?

 

Sorry the question sounds confusing. There are no wires on the cap. Can the rotor piont toward any position on the cap as long as the #1 plug wire is placed on that location?

 

Not confusing at all. You will hear both right and wrong for this, but IMHO you are correct. It matters not as long as you start wiring from where the rotor is pointing. There are some rather **** types who will insist otherwise, but I've run many an engine using your system.

 

As Bear stated, yeas if you wire the firing order correctly it will run just like it was done correctly to begin with

 

You can put them anywhere. Most cap anymore aren't marked "1" anymore, so it won't confuse anyone looking at it.

 

The only problem is if you get the rotor pointing at just the right spot and you can't turn the distributor far enough to get the timing right.

Otherwise, no, it doesn't matter one bit where it points. I've always just dropped it in and set the wires accordingly. The only time I cared was either when the wires were already in the cap, or one of the plug wires wasn't long enough to reach from the driver's side rear spark plug to the opposite side of the cap. But I used a cheapo set of wires that weren't for an FE

 

Couldn't get it to fire right on more than 4 cylinders so I removed the pertronics ignitor and put in points and condenser. Runs like a champ.

 

Something ain't right, unless the Pertronix unit is screwed up?

 

I even tried the new Ignitor II whick doesn't need a ballast resistor and couldn't get that to work. I may have been doing something wrong. However, they are pretty much plug and play.

 

In the books, it typically shows #1 in the 2 o clock position, pointing towards the #5 cylinder. If you start the wires in any 'ol place and it runs, some idiot (raises hand) will eventually redo the wires, not pay attention, yank them all off, and put them where they belong and singe the crap out of their hair. The caps I have seen, all have the #1 cast into them

 

Well, you haven't seen all that many caps then. Anyone that just yanks the wires off without TDCing the motor and then checking the firing order, needs to be singed for felony stupid.

 

Yeah well if I had a dollar for every stupid thing I ever did(lets be honest) I wouldn't need to play the lotto!!

 

Yeah, I was dumb for not catching the fact that the old wires were put on one tooth off because of a lazy distributor install. I assumed that everybody did it the right way, and and would surely put the #1 wire on #1 on the cap. I normally do it 1 wire at a time, but whatever wires were used, or the random method of picking which wires to use, left me with a mess of spaghetti, wires taped into loops to take up slack, routed this way, then going off in some random direction... It looked like a tweaker did the work. I gave up trying to fix that mess one wire at a time. I know from personal experience that if it does not start immediatley, something is wrong, and to STOP!. But it SOOO sounded like it "wanted" to start.

What burned the crap out of my hair was not the fact that the firing order was off, it was when I realized my mistake AND CORRECTED IT, that I caught fire. What was funny (after the fact) was after the thing backfired, started right up and purred like a kitten.

No I have not seen every cheap Chinese or US distributor cap that has ever been made, but the ones I have ever bought, and 99% of the ones I have ever seen, all had #1 marked on them.

You cannot look me in the eye (and be truthful) and tell me that you have never in your entire life, made a DUH common sense mistake.

 

Please quote where I said I never made any mistakes, dumb or otherwise. I've made as many or more than my share. But I always try to learn from other's mistakes as it is much easier on my body. But I also know to never "assume" anything. Because it will only be your first mistake.

 

23 years ago when I got my first 360 FE (the highboy), the cap didn't have a "1" on it, and my brother was pretty **** about using good quality caps with brass inserts (not aluminum).

In the 20 years that I owned an FE, I remember ONE, exactly ONE cap I bought somewhere had a "1" on it, and I thought "what the hell does THAT mean?"

Anyway, to each his/her own