Distributor Question

I have a 225 Dauntless engine with an HEI distributor. When I bring the engine to TDC on # 1 cylinder. ( Most
forward plug on drivers side), the rotor is pointing at the plug wire that goes to last plug on pass side. I thought
that should be #6 plug? Not sure I understand what odd fire means??? Should plugs on drivers side be 1, 3, 5 and plugs on pass side be 2,4, 6???? It runs like this but seems to be the plug wires are messed up! Help please!!

 

Rather than make a long-winded reply, here is the Wikipedia article about odd vs. even fire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V6_engine#Odd_and_even_firing

The order of plug wires has to match the firing order of the engine. For cylinder numbering and firing order, look here - http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/GM_firing_orders

You should own a copy of the factory service manual for your Jeep (not Hayne's or Chilton's). These are available from most Jeep parts retailers.

You can rotate the distributor to whatever plug wire and distributor orientation that you want, as long as 1) the rotor points at the #1 spark plug wire at #1 TDC, 2) the phase of the odd-fire distributor is correct (ie rotation angle between cylinder's firing - see the Wikipedia article), and 3) the plug wires are in the proper firing order in the direction of rotation.

If it runs ok, why do you think the plug wires are messed up? If the plug wires were out of order, you would get backfiring through the carburetor.

 

Also note that these Jeeps did not come from the factory with a HEI distributor. So a PO has added it. the PO may have rotated the distributor so that the much larger HEI distributor clears the parts of the engine.

This topic is discussed a lot - https://www.google.com/search?q=site:earlycj5.com+HEI+distributor+rotation+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 - read through some of these older posts and maybe it will become clear.

 

Tim, at the risk of sounding like a NOOB, how did you do the google search that only pertains to ECJ5?

 

You restrict the search to a web site using the "site" keyword, ie "site:earlycj5.com". Works a lot better than ECJ5's built-in search engine.

 

Adding to Tim's notes, I just put a few notes on searching using Google here:
http://www.earlycj5.com/xf_cj5/index.php?threads/google-to-search-the-site.117753