Larry Macy wrote:
> Sorry to be so ignorant but what the hell is dwell and why is it so
> important?
The dwell is important because it controls how long the coil is
charging per cycle.
Imagine if your points barely closed, there wouldn't be much time
for current through the coil to built up a magnetic field and you
would have little or no spark.
> If the points are set correctly - does that not mean the dwell is right?
Well, in a perfect world, yes. Setting the point gap with a feeler
is an indirect way of setting dwell. What really matters is the dwell
not the point gap, but when the point gap is about right so is the
dwell.
For best accuracy, set the point gap using a dwell meter. It makes
up for inaccuracies like grooved points or uneven distributor cams
and so on. But frankly if you want that kind of accuracy go electronic.
--
Trevor Boicey
Ottawa, Canada
tboicey@brit.ca
http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
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