Before a bunch of medical issues (mostly my wife's) started nibbling away at my shop time, I was experimenting with "blueprinting" a stovebolt distributor- - - -eliminating the shaft wobble with a needle bearing, and using a long dial indicator extension through the insulator hole in the housing to exactly match the lobe lift and degree spacing of the six cam lobes by touching them up with a set of machinist's needle files. It's pretty impressive to see how much angular error there is on a stock distributor, especially one with a little housing wear. One degree of point opening error changes the spark timing at the cylinder by two degrees!
Back in the 1950s, I used to watch my father convert dual point distributors for Lincoln Zephyr V-12 engines to run on flathead Ford V8s for his dirt track race car. He ended up with each set of points running a separate coil, and powering 4 cylinders. That involved a LOT of modifications, but the end result was a HOT blue spark 1/2" long- - - - -from a 6 volt ignition system!
Jerry
