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Sorry to hear of this unfortunate situation and the engine damage. While you'll never know if the cap failure or timing contributed to the engine failure, it will always leave the lingering doubt about the product, even without the customer 'service' contribution. I too had the center electrode fail in my 123 dizzy cap that left me stranded in a far away place. I wasn't smart enough to carry a spare, as I thought the new one would last longer than 2000 km. Silly me. I carry a lot of spares, before and after that event, but rarely have had to use any of them, but experiences like this make the practice necessary.

Found this on Petrolicious just now, pretty cool. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't feel special: https://www.tr-register.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/54044-123-distributor-catastrophic-rotor-failure/

Sorry about it destroying your exhaust and piston! Could be fake distributor caps that got into the supply chain as you both had the same failure of a robust part that is ubiquitous and easily well made. Thanks for the warning... if the electronics go, I imagine something similar will happen. I would worry cheap/fake Chinese electronic components exposed to all the heat will fail fast just like in Korean cars with Chinese electrics.

The honey article was fascinating You wonder how many products we consume are contaminated. The country of origin is also hard to really know whether you can trust that too. Sort of like online reviews. Might be true; might not. How many of the health issues in this country are the direct result of all the processed junk we consume and are exposed to?

So, I’ve stumbled upon two 240z steering wheels in the past couple weeks during my junkyard explorations. They were really rough but were only $30 so I thought I attempt a home restoration. I thought I’d share my experience in this process. I know there are other posts but I don’t think anyone has posted a wheel that looked as bad as the one I’m restoring. I’ve completed the clean up and strip down. I used a small palm sander for the metal with 240 grit and 320 grit wet sand on the wood. I’ve masked the wood off and will prime, paint and clear coat the metal today. Here is the wheel as it looked after pulling for the rusted Z. It had some green algae on it too. Car was in a pseudo swap in Mississippi with no drivers door so I wasn’t surprised.

It will be very interesting to see the leak down results and to tear down the head, 15,000 miles is just broken in, a mystery waiting to be solved.

Here is the knob sanded down. The shift knob map was totally destroyed. Trying to tint both the wheel and knob to match. Won’t be easy because they’re different materials and won’t accept color the same. Speaking of the shift knob map. A 5 speed Nissan one seems impossible to find but the old Toyota one looks almost identical. I just wonder if the diameter is the same. Here’s the shift knob map on a old FJ. It’s only $12 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I suspect there are lots of people like me that haven't gotten involved but still have a high opinion of 123 because I know people who have run them and like them. It is unfortunate you have had a problem and others for that matter. The main take away I have so far is their supplied caps are suspect. As for your engine damage, I would want alot more info before I blamed the distributor! Lots of other possibilities there before I would suspect timing. Now on a turbo application timing is more crucial but NA and strret compressions not so much.

How do we tell who wins this conversation? I win if you find a problem that is not timing related. You win if nobody ever buys a 123 distributor again. I'm rooting for me.

The AAR does the same thing as the idle adjustment screw. You could just open up the idle adjustment screw to see if it starts and holds idle. If it works then the idle speed will slowly increase the engine warms up. It will be a good clue about the problem though.

Fighting the world's irrationality, one simple internet post at a time...

You're "bad-mouthing" a good company, based on a lack of knowledge. I do know how engines work, and I know how to determine the cause of a failure. You have jumped to a poor conclusion and are sticking to it, no matter how much rational advice you're given. You're spending more time defending a bad position than actually trying to find the truth. That's why I'm here, to find out what really happened. I did not read your email exchange with 123. But if you communicated with them like you're doing here I can see why they gave you problems, and why they refunded your money. You just wore them out.

I started with Zed Head process and decided to work on the idle issue first. Checked the AAR thru ECU for 12V, all good. I pulled the AAR and looked inside and there is about a 1/16" opening, I thought should be open about halfway when cold, right or wrong? Situnseen - I do have a vacumm gauge and will perform the check. Thanks for the article on installing shaft.

Thank you for sharing your story and for reading. That's funny you share your post because I do recall now reading yours! I could have sworn it was longer than a month ago. Man, time flies. Also thank you for your well wishes. I plan to get her up and running pretty soon. It's a shame I'll miss vacation but eh. I'll keep my fingers crossed for your unit over there, my friend.

Hi @kats & @Carl Beck, I do think the red car is HLS30-00003. Here are two interesting images from the first FSM with the red car. Do you see a number written in two locations? ?

Is there difinitive engine damage? I didnt pick that up in the original post. These engines are pretty robust

Interesting, I’m restoring a shift knob I found on the same car. Was going to match them. I’ll post pics Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Your choice as to which surfaces get the dressing. A thin coating is all you need. Any more than will result in dressing squeeze out. I've installed pumps with no dressing, just a bit of grease on the gaskets and had no leaks. No need to lube the pump.

I'm very sorry to hear your experiences with 123. I loved it, then hated it with a passion and recently, very slowly starting to like it again. I had the exact same issue with both the Beru caps that came on it and the silly expensive spare I bought at the same time. Thankfully it failed relatively safely and all I got was back fire and loss of power. I bought the equivalent Bosch cap - which I wouldn't say is a HUGE step up in quality / finish but hasn't had this issue. To complement your write up and add to the body of evidence, I did a write up of 123 ign - warts 'en all on the link below: https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/123-ignition-for-datsun-l6-on-my-l28.25467/ IMHO it's a great product that is plagued by quality issues which at this price point should not exist. There are other options out there that aren't as slick but provide data logging too, so worth researching before committing. Here is one such option: https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/speeduino-installation.23302/page-3 I do hope 123 get their act together and address customer feedback as I really love the concept and find the custom advance curve very useful for my fine tuning antics. I am astounded how small companies take so little care to protect their reputation by providing lousy post sales customer service. Was it responsible for melting your piston? Impossible to know but at the very least acknowledging the issue with the cap would help to improve their product and avoid reviews like yours and mine (which incidentally come up in the top links of google searches). Hope you get the car sorted again! Thank you for sharing your experiences. People generally shy away from writing up negative experiences and the rest of us fall into the same traps without this knowledge.

Well it is not as nice as your example, but it is available.

That's my new wallpaper for the next month, gorgeous. Gotta love a deep dignified blue.

https://flatsixes.com/cars/porsche-912/benton-performance-fully-committed-912-video/

Done

Yup. From someone with a garage queen of 4 years plus.... drive it while you can. Restore it later when you have time.

I brought a surprise Z home once. It was in the backyard for about a month before she noticed...