Help with 318 Dodge

[t-vicky]

Am building a 61 ford unibody pickup for a customer with a 73 dodge 318  Got the motor back from the rebuilder & all is fine. Bought a new pick-up thingie for the distributer, that takes the place of the points & cant find any info on what kind of gap to set it to.  Can anyone help?

[tomslik]

Am building a 61 ford unibody pickup for a customer with a 73 dodge 318  Got the motor back from the rebuilder & all is fine. Bought a new pick-up thingie for the distributer, that takes the place of the points & cant find any info on what kind of gap to set it to.  Can anyone help?

.010 if i remember right

[enjenjo]

I believe you should us a non magnetic gauge too.

[tomslik]

I believe you should us a non magnetic gauge too.

yep, but you don't HAVE to.
i haven't seen a brass feeler guage for long time...

[mopar2dr]

After you set the gap draw the vacuum advance to full advance. Check the gap again as bent or miss-aligned parts can cause a problem. I've seen half of gaps disappear and the star rotor hit the pickup points.

[38HAULR]

One tip I can give for these if you have that distributor running the Chrysler  transistorised black box and want a HEI system.
What I have done is use the pick up coil to trigger a 4 pin Bosch module commonly used by GM, FORD, and some Jap vehicles here in Australia thru the 80,s. These or similar would have been used in the US.
Use the matching HEI coil from these vehicles and you end up with  a much better spark. Mount the module on a suitable heatsink making sure it is grounded properly via the contact under the mounting bolt holes.
Only drama is to get the pick up coil polarity right for the module input,wrong way will not damage the module,just throws the timing way out.
Ditch the ballast resistor also, the system runs full 12v
Frank.