TR4/4A Thoughts on distributors for my 62 TR4

[SCguy]

I need a distributor for my 62 TR4. Any thoughts on what I should buy or where for price? I assume that my engine is stock and was considering a Mallory from Moss thinking that this might be the least expensive most reliable. How about the coil?

 

[TR4]

Assuming you have the original dizzy or could pick one off ebay relatively cheap, what about installing the Pertronix kit? That took care of my old worn one. The car runs great now. Just an option.

 

[SCguy]

I have one... and have good luck with Pertronix, but I'm totally unsure of it's condition as it's covered in bondo dust and ten years of sitting in a mechanic's box grunge. You might remember that I bought this car in pieces after a mechanic had started the restoration for a client 10-15 years ago! (What's the expression... when in doubt, leave it out?)

 

[Andrew Mace]

Just curious: are you physically missing a distributor, or is yours broken or horribly worn, or ???

 

[Alan_Myers]

Hi Larry,

About your only choices in a dizzy are to track down an original replacement Lucas or to go to a Mallory. There are some "full race" crank-triggered magnetos and such, but I'm assuming you are talking about a street car, primarily, and not considering anything so radical as that. There are also full engine management systems which use a crank sensor, but these are quite costly.

So, assuming you are going to use a dizzy, the original is pretty self-explanatory. That leaves the Mallory.

In the Mallory, there are two models: dual point and electronic/Unilite. Each of these comes in two versions: vacuum advance and mechanical advance (i.e., non-vacuum advance).

For most street applications, vacuum advance style is appropriate. Mallory without vac. advance is most often used with Weber sidedraft (DCOE,etc.) carb conversions, which do not provide a point to pick up vacuum for the dizzy. If you are using SU or ZS carbs, you would probably want the dizzy with vacuum advance, as it will typically provide a bit better fuel ecomony for street driving.

The final choice is whether you want breaker points or fully electronic ignition. I have a dual point Mallory dizzy on my TR4 now and if I had it to do over again, I'd probably go with the slightly more expensive electronic Mallory Unilite dizzy. This is simply because there is less maintenance and more reliability with the electronic dizzy. But, that's just me and you might prefer to use the dual point setup. Incidentially, that can be converted to electronic, too. But, the Mallory conversion module costs about $120 on top of the cost of the dizzy, so going straight to a Unilite is cheaper than converting a dual point.

So you have them, the parts numbers for Mallory dizzies to fit TR2/3/4/4A are:

Dual point with vacuum advance: 2732001
Dual point without vac. advance: 2332001

Unilite electronic with vacuum advance: 4732001
Unilite electronic without vac. advance: 4532001

Please note that all these *do not* have the drive dog installed on the shaft. This has to be setup using the old one off the old distributor, or installing a new one. It's held in place with a roll pin that means drilling a hole in the shaft. Instructions come with the dizzy and it can be done (carefully) with a hand drill. This does allow changing the orientation of the dizzy a little to improve plug wire routing, if you wish.

In addition, a new coil would probably be a good idea. Mallory has an OEM style high output chrome sport coil #29219 (doublecheck this before ordering one) for use with the dual point dizzies. This is basically the same size and shape as the Lucas coil on the TR4. Alternatively, Mallory offers a Promaster coil #29440 that can be used with either points or electronic dizzy, and can also be used along with a capacitive/multi-spark discharge box such as Mallory's Hyfire VI-AL if you think you ever might want to add one of those (it can be fired by either point or electronic dizzy, although the latter is probably preferred).

There are a wide variety of sources for Mallory distributors. www.Summitracing.com might be a good one, price-wise. There was another source mentioned in a previous post, with really good prices... you might search the archive.

One of the advantages of Mallory is parts are widely available. Points, rotors, caps and condensers for the dual point dizzies can almost always be found at local speed shops. They are a bit pricier than some others, though. The Unilite dizzies need less maintenance.

Hope this helps with your decisions.

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