Is there any remote chance this distributor is off by a tooth? The rotor is so wide… 1992 Marelli V12
Not sure without the cap in pic. How does the car run?
If it were misaligned spark would be getting directed to wrong cylinders (all 12) and you would certainly know it.
The distributor only “distributes” the spark and has no bearing on the timing on a Marelli car.
Found an image, looks as though yours is close enough.
It is close, indeed, but it looks like it needs to be “optimized” a bit.
Those allen screws would certainly allow for the body to be rotated a few degrees CCW (if the line I drew is not misleading us)
was the Denso an improvement over marelli?
ron
I don’t think moving the distributor body has any effect on this Marelli XJS. Being a tooth out might though… but I guess if it was a tooth out it’d be way more out.
The car doesn’t run. All the obvious stuff is done… has spark, has correct fuel pressure, visually verified gasoline coming out of injectors, has compression. I’m down to all the weird possibilities, like timing chain skipped a tooth or clogged cats or who the hell knows. I put plugs in just to see if they are firing and they are getting slightly dirty brown. It fires a couple times, like a engine that is way out of time. It’s stumping me!
Have you done a compression test?
If your pic shows car with #1 at TDC then distributor is not a tooth out.
How fresh is fuel?
As already stated, you are almost where it needs to be. Cannot be a tooth off. Moving the body does not adjust timing, but allows the dot and the arrow to be perfectly aligned.
Does not seem like this is your problem. Is the pump running while you’re cranking? Any chance A and B coils are plugged backwards? (I know, you are very experienced, please don’t take this the wrong way)
He stated “has compression” :-))
Been there and done this once.
Felt stoop-id after discovering
But also relieved