thought i would post these pics to get some feedback from you guys on my MSD dizzy cap. not sure if the burn marks on the tips of each terminal should be there and the dark ring around the middle of the cap. not having any issues with it per say, just want to be sure all is normal.

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That is normal wear for a distributor cap and rotor. The black ring is carbon build up. You can wipe the carbon out of the cap with a damp rag. Too much carbon build up can lead to carbon tracking which can cause misfires in extreme cases.

Yep, normal for the most part. I will sometimes clean up the terminals by very slightly hitting them with emory cloth. Clean it out with some electrical contact cleaner.

I think the lower ring is from the advance mechanism. That's pretty low on the cap for carbon tracking I think. I have seen where lube or even rust powder will fly off the advance mechanism and leave tracking like that. Is it powdery or greasy?

it's powdery for sure. will clean it up and keep an eye out. with you being in NW washington, you planning on heading up north this weekend to Mission for the doorwarz event?

Yeah spray it out (ideally with electric parts cleaner) and wipe it down and it will be all good. Might be time to get a new one though, at least for a back up.
You may want to remove the rotor and clean the advance parts up, I would bet the line is some rust dust from that. Not hurting anything probably but good maintenance.
The closer I look at the picture the more I'm sure that's what it is, see how the dust is heavy in the cap groves on one side of the groove, and not in the other? From flinging off of the mechanism spinning in that direction.


Actually we talked about heading up there for that with my buddies' car to run, but it's not quite ready. I should come up and watch but as busy as I've been with work I need the three day weekend to catch up. And man, it's going to be hot as hell this weekend!

I love Mission, I'm only a couple hours away (Snohomish) and it was so much better of a track than ours here locally, better people running the track, better prep, etc. We loved racing up there because the track was so notoriously fast, especially in the evening when the cool air comes in off the river. The Canadians always treated us well too, even though they made fun of our beer...lol

That's going to be an awesome event. There are a ton of guys running up there that we used to race against years ago and over the years when the pro street racing started getting big. Great people.
I'm looking forward to getting back out and doing some racing with my buddy, he has taken a few years off for health reasons and has been getting a new car combo together, it's going to be pretty wicked.
We had tons of fun racing up there over the years, brings back memories!

Are you going? You race there?

Thanks Sean I think that's what I'll do. Yes I love going to Mission. Not sure if you are aware but it is an all concrete track now. Although they have had numerous issues with the track surface since going all concrete but I think they have them mostly worked out now. One of their main motivations to resurfacing the track was the concern that moisture could wick through the ashphalt sporadically because of the water table with the river. There was thinking that it could be the cause of a crash or two. I don't race but have been around it my whole life. My uncle races and raced at mission at the original track in the 60's. I have helped him for many years. I have hummed around with the idea of racing now that I can afford it but my wife doesn't like the idea of committing to a bunch of weekends. Perhaps when the kids are a little older. What kinda car is your buddy putting together?

I think I had heard that it was resurfaced in concrete, that will be nice.

The current car he is working on is the old car we had raced 2-3 years ago, he just switched from a 700" nitrous motor to a 670ish" with an F3R blower. We ran nitrous big blocks for many years, and finally just got tired of chasing the turbo cars and beating parts up. When you are running 3 systems of 600+ horse nitrous the tuning window is more of a peep hole, lol.

He had a 9 second 69 Chevelle he raced for several years up there. Then got more high maintenance and that's when he started having me help him, first it was an all steel 70 Nova with a 632, went in the 7.70's, then he sold that and bought a 69 El Camino and went in the 7.30's same motor, lighter car. Sold that (actually to a guy from BC that still has it I think, it's black now) and bought the current car (C5 vette bodied chassis race car) with a nearly turn key 707" nitrous motor.
We never had a proper season of testing and getting it dialed in, but ran a best of 7.20 at around 185 on two of three systems. It was a 6 second car easily had we got it down the track right.

He had issues again with the nitrous in Vegas and got fed up and finally just sold all of it, manifold, bottles, filling station, everything. Decided to go with an alcohol BBC with a blower.
It's been I guess three years now since we have raced, but we ran up in Mission at the pro street events and the Harley drags a few times, at Pacific here locally, and raced in the Street car super nationals in Vegas for about 5 years straight. (That's an awesome race, but hard to be competitive).

As it sits now it's pretty much all done, just some final items. The hard part is we have to start over with the chassis tuning, everything. Hopefully we can get it down the track clean this year when we do get out. Plus I have to learn how to tune the new bullet, never really messed with super chargers before. It's all internal combustion though....
I need to somehow find time too, like you said, it's a lot of commitment.

Here's a couple kind of crappy cell phone shots of the car as it sits and one of how it was a few years back.

When he first got it-



How it looks today-

very nice car. don't see a lot of vettes. Looks like all the right stuff. can't beat a blower car. the nitrous cars seem to be the weak sisters at these events. RH racecars out of Kelowna is building some pretty stout stuff these days. Their fab work is second to none from what i have seen. They will have half a dozen cars at the race this weekend at least. you should check out the WDRL site too, lots of good operations there and good guys always willing to help. http://wdrl.ca/ http://www.rhracecars.com/

Cool, thanks for the links! I haven't seen the WDRL before. We used to race with the CPSA guys. Guess I've been out of it awhile...ha.

It looks like one of the guys we know is driving a car for RH, Brian Macy. He actually has helped my buddy with some of his tuning questions, etc on the new motor. We have raced with Brian for quite awhile, back when he was running a drag radial car. Good guy.

Looking over the door warz page makes me want to go... Also blows my mind how fast the 10.5 cars are going (I remember when breaking into the 6's was a big deal, guys are running in the 5's now)....
That's going to be a good event. I see its named after Dale Moznik, we raced with him and Roy back with the CPSA, both really good guys, too bad about Dale. Roy actually is the guy that bought my buddy's 69 El Camino from him.

I miss racing man!

the RH guys are building a pretty solid rep. neat to see out of little kelowna. check out their facebook page, they are way more active there and you can see a lot more pics etc of their current builds. they just finished a beautiful firebird turbo car that will be at mission as well. ditch your work and come up to mission this weekend! spend 4th up north of the border!

Yeah that's really cool they are right there in Kelowna, they are building some amazing looking cars. I saw a picture of that 'bird I think on the wdrl page, wicked looking.

Do you know the guys that run the operation? Are they locals?

i don't know the guys but i believe they are locals. i have heard several stories over the last couple years where they really continue to work with and support the guys they build cars for. they are at most of the races and lend a hand lots of times if guys are stuck so very good customer service. some pretty high dollar cars so makes sense and considering the racing community is small when you really think about it, any smart business owner is going to service their client well when spending six figures!

Back to the original topic, the carbon is just that, caused by the spark flash over between the rotor tip and terminal during normal operation. The spark literally fries the carbon and other ozone particles onto the terminals.

To clean the buildup off, use a deburring tool or other knife like tool to remove the carbon buildup off the terminals. DO NOT USE BRILLO OR OTHER ABRASIVE PADS that will leave small pieces of materials on the terminals.

After getting all the carbon off the terminals, coat each terminal, NOT THE ROTOR OR CENTER BUSHING TERMINAL, with di-electric grease, NOT silicone or other "greases", and that should help stop the buildup, as it stops the ability to burn carbon onto the terminal during spark events.

Thanks for the info Dave. Sorry Sean and I got carried away talking racing!

Hey Sean;

thought i would share a few pics from the race on the weekend. can you say HOT?! wow it was rather sticky. pro mod cars had some traction issues to say the least but the strong operations were able to get down the track for the most part. couple sub 6 second passes in the 240mph plus range. I will post a few more pics as well

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