Glen. Not quite correct.

Posted by Mike Smith on July 23, 1998 at 10:16:50

In Reply to: Re: Dwell Meter
posted by Glen Weilbaker on July 23, 1998 at 07:09:32

Correct contact point opening is important, especially during starting and low speed operation. If contact points are set to close, arcing and burning will occur, causing hard starting and poor low speed performance. If points are set to wide the cam angle or dwell will be to small to allow saturation of the coil at high engine speeds, resulting in a weak spark.
Distributor point opening has a direct bearing on cam angle or dwell , which is the number of degrees that the breaker cam rotates from the time the points close until they open again, therefore not the period that they are open but when they are closed. The cam angle or dwell increases as point opening or gap is decreasedand vice versa. In many 4 cylinder engines this angle varies from 40 to 60 degrees and should be checked at an rpm on the higher side, what this is in relation to the 'A', I really dont know.

: Al,
:A dwell meter measures the number degrees the points are open. This is usually done by compairing the electrical signature from of the points to a precision time base in the meter, this is the simplist way I can explain without becoming too teecnickle.
: GW

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