ID of electronic distributor?

carl

carl

True Classic
The recent post about carbed and injected 1500 dizzy curves got me curious about the five electronic dizzys I have in a box (that does not include the one on the car). I would like to ID them but the thread referenced had pictures of the advance weights and springs. I started to take apart the worst looking one I had just to see what's involved and so far after removing a central screw and several snap rings I'm just down to the yellowish plastic device with the wire coils around it. I have no clue how to get that off and frankly I'm already at too much work to go through this with four other dizzys.

Any way to ID them without a total tear down other than sticking them on the car and checking the advance curve?
 
CAn't help with the main question - pretty sure to remove the winding it's a matter of removing external screws that retain it to the casing.

Can't you use the Bosch # to ID them? Any FI dist is going to have the same curve. I thought the same was true for carb dist.
 
I'll try that. In the discussion thread it was indicated the body serial number is the same for both dizzys which makes sense since the body is the same. The curves are different.
 
Good question Carl. I was also interested in that post about the curves for FI and Carb dizzys. I have a few I'd like to look into as well, but like you I'm not in a hurry to tear everything apart (done it a few times in the past and it is a task). Maybe see if you can find any identifying markings (FI vs Carb) on yours and I'll do the same for mine.
 
Actually that makes sense. The same design Bosch distributors for VW's have a similar part number designation. The stock or standard units end in 020 and the performance (faster advance) units end in 050. But as I recall, in that case the 050 is a non-vacuum advance (centrifugal only) design. Is there a part number designation for non-vacuum advance dizzys on Fiat's? I know most of the parts are interchangeable with the Fiat and VW ones, I'll bet the springs are the same between them as well.

EDIT: Regarding Bosch dizzy part numbers on VW's. There was also a 040 model. If I recall it had the quicker advance arrangement (like 050) but also retained the vacuum canister as part of it. But it's been a long time since I played with the older VW stuff so I might be getting the details mixed. But it was something of a big deal because to keep SMOG law compliant in Calif back then you had to have a dizzy with a vacuum advance (i.e. same as stock). Technically it should have been the stock advance curve to be compliant, but the inspectors did not know part numbers so you could use the dizzy with a quicker advance and still pass if it looked the same (had the canister).
 
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Somewhere on this site somebody did a nice write up on the differences between the Bosch carb and FI distributors with photos, etc. Even has advance spring dimensions.
 
Yea, I read that and the dizzy I had marked "79" has the same advance spring dimensions as mentioned in that article....but you have to do a complete teardown to get to those springs. I'll check the numbers on the others as suggested by Jeff.
 
I looked at the 79 dizzy body and there is a number under the vacuum advance capsule that ends in 20. I checked the other four dizzys I have that I'm fairly sure came out of FI motors I parted out and they all ended in 50 as Jeff indicated. I did not do any advance curve measurements on any of these but hope to have my son help me this weekend, checking the curve on the distributor in my motor and also pull of the firewall inspection plate to see what unit that is.
 
I was able to look at three distributors for part numbers; a '79 carb, a '80 FI, and a '85 FI. All three have identical part numbers, both Fiat and Bosch (050). I'd have to go back to the other threads to remember, when we say a "carb" dizzy, are we talking electronic ignition carb-induction 1500, or a points ignition carb 1300? Because my 1500 carb engine has the FI part number dizzy (and that car is very original).
 
Dr.Jeff said:
I was able to look at three distributors for part numbers; a '79 carb, a '80 FI, and a '85 FI. All three have identical part numbers, both Fiat and Bosch (050). I'd have to go back to the other threads to remember, when we say a "carb" dizzy, are we talking electronic ignition carb-induction 1500, or a points ignition carb 1300? Because my 1500 carb engine has the FI part number dizzy (and that car is very original).
Click to expand...

Carl was taking about 1979-on X1/9 1500 Bosch electronic ignition distributors (carbed & FI 1500). The "carb" distributor being referred to here is the '79-'80 X1/9 1500 Bosch EI unit. The thread I referenced was also talking about these same 2 Bosch EI distributors. USA X1/9 1500's never came with a points-type distributor, only the 1300's had that (usually the Ducellier unit).

Having the 050 distributor on it, I'd surmise that your '79 carb car may not be as "very original" as you thought. ;)
 
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