ARE YOU SURE THAT TI DISTRIBUTOR CAPS ARE BROWN?
-
-
Absolutely positive
The K-66 I bought and installed on my SWC off the '67 L-88 that is the subject of another thread had a brown cap. Also,the terminals were copper colored rather than the silver terminals (aluminum?) of the conventional black cap. I don't think these brown caps were available as service parts for very long, and maybe Joe can give us the story. When I sold the K-66 to David Burroughs in 1988 to install back on the infamous 12 mile L-88 from whence it came, it still had the original brown cap. In 1967 Oldsmobile offered the new Delco capacitor discharge ignition system as an option. This system used the same magnetic pulse distribrutor as the TI, but the distributor cap was bright red!
Duke -
Re: Absolutely positive
Duke, Is it possible that 69,70 and/or 71 TI cars had black 308 caps. Both my LT-1's which are low mileage(13K and 21K)and purchased by me from the original owners(both of which say the distributor caps had never been changed)are black 308 Patent Pending w/ R caps. Are you familiar w/ these years?Comment
-
Re: Absolutely positive
Duke-----
The dark brown Delco distributor caps and the black Delco distributor caps are functionally interchangeable. Basically, the thrust of my original response was that no special and unique distributor cap was necessary for a TI distributor and, consequently, the aftermarket units readily available from Accel and Filko could be used.
As far as the "dark brown" caps are concerned, all that I have ever seen have copper terminals and contacts. However, I've seen black caps which also had the copper terminals and contacts as opposed to the FAR more common aluminum variety. While the "dark brown" caps may have been used on some, many, or all TI distributors, GM NEVER catalogued a seperate and unique cap for TI-equipped cars. There were several different cap part numbers used over the 62-74 model years and some engine applications DID call for different caps. I believe that the "dark brown" cap with copper terminals and contacts MAY have been GM #1941551.
As far as I know, all L-88 TI distributors were originally fitted with the "dark brown" caps. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that TI distributors were generally supplied with these caps. In fact, last year at Bloomington I purchased an NOS TI distributor in the original GM box. It had a black cap. A friend of mine has another NOS TI distributor in the GM box and it has a black cap. I've seen several other NOS TI distributors for sale and every one that I've seen has had a black cap. Of course, none of these were originally installed distributors, but it's very difficult at this point to assess what caps that originally installed TI distributors had since VERY few still have their original caps.In Appreciation of John HinckleyComment
-
Re: Absolutely positive
Dave - It has always been my understanding that all TIs had the brown cap, which was made up of upgraded insulating and conducting materials to handle the additional energy and voltage, but, based on Joe's post, this understanding may be incorrect. I have a tough time believing that GM would design and tool a unique cap for the L-88, but it looks there's more than meets the eye to Corvette OEM and service distributor caps, and not enough knowledge/research is available to tell the whole story.
DukeComment
-
Re: Absolutely positive
Duke and Joe; Thanks for the feedback. Based on my own cars and conversations with others I'm going to stay with the theory that black 308 patent pending R caps were used in 70 and 71. Given the way things are we know all to well that black, brown or both could be correct. Is Terry Mc out there?Comment
-
Comment
-
Re: L88 and ZL1, brown
I've always had the understanding that the L88 and ZL1 distributor caps were the only ones that were brown. I don't know about after 1969. All others and TI distributor caps before 1970 are black. Respective year's judging manuals are a reference for the same information. TBarr #24014Comment
-
Re: TI distributor caps *TL*
Dave et al,
My belief is that only the L88 (and maybe ZL1, but who knows about those?) had brown caps. All low mileage 1968-1971 TI I have seen (and to be truthful it has not been all that many) have had black caps.
Now to really start something we will have to get into what should be on the caps beside Delco Remy. We could go on for a long time on that one. And every one has an opinion....
BTW: Mars was great.
Terry
TerryComment
-
Re: TI distributor caps
my 1964-65-66 corvettes all had TI ignition and the caps were black from the factory.Comment
Comment