[Joe Bob]

I went to the Rennlist archive and reprinted an excellent response from Dave Darling....why re-invent the wheel?




The difference is that the 050 was designed for a car motor, and the
009 was designed for a motor that is used to run an electrical generator (or
other stationary gizmo) at a constant RPM.
People want the 009s because everyone wants to sell them 009s--they
are dirt cheap! (Ask John L what the wholesale price is on them sometime...)
The 009 is also very common, mostly because people have pushed and pushed and
pushed them onto people. The 050 can be (I hear) tougher to get parts for.
Your car should have the stock 2.0 distributor, if it has the stock
FI on it. The 009 and 050 will NOT work, since they don't have the FI trigger
points that the stock dizzy has.
If your car has carbs, then you have more choices. The stock dizzy
still should work pretty well. The 009 only has ~12 degrees of centrifugal
advance available, so it will not work as well. (The stock one has ~22 deg.)
The stock 1.8 dizzy has ~30 degrees, and might be the best choice. I have
not heard figures for the 050, but it is supposed to be more than the 009 and
less than the 1.8 dizzy.
You *can* get any distributor re-curved. All it takes is money and a
shop with the appropriate "distributor machine" and parts (weights, springs,
etc.). If you do that to the 009, AND the other mechanical bits (driveshaft
bushings, the case, etc.) are in good shape, it would I think be just fine.
Don't know how much that would cost, though, and the 050 or 1.8 version might
be a less expensive alternative...

If you like, we can back this up one more step and talk just about
spark advance, and how and why centrifugal advance and vaccuum advance (and
retard) work.

--DD