Distributor mount, and the differences in years.

[Wobbles1971]

I was curious, I hear people talking about the distributor mount needing to be replaced when swapping out different style/year distributors and I want to make sure this is needed in my case. I have N42 (75?) block with a N47 (77?) head, in my 71 Z. I stripped all the fuel injection stuff off to use this setup with my SUs. Now my stock distributor does have a slightly different mount/plate then what was on the fuel injected distributor, but it appears when mocking it up that it fits fine. And when I measure the clearances in shaft and all measurements I get the same results from the 2. Only difference I see is the location of the advance screws and their positioning, but it dont appear to pose any threat to adjusting. Also, even if I try to swap the mount/plate from the later distributor onto the 240Z distributor the 8mm adjusting bolt does not match up for install.

Does the need for swapping out the mount/plate only refer to using the ZX distributor and not the early 280z distributor?

Guess Im having a hard time thinking this thru as you can tell, mostly due to things are not lining up correctly as far as all my manuals are concerned. I think when this motor was set-up the distributor/oil pump shaft was just inserted any old way and the rotor/plug connections were compensated for.

[Arne]

I only have experience with the original L24 points dizzy and the ZX dizzy, so I can't advise specifically on the later 280Z unit. But if it were me, I'd try to use whatever support that the dizzy you are using came with. If you are going to use a dizzy from a 280Z, use the 280Z support. Same with the ZX. Keeping the dizzy and its support matched is the best way to ensure that you avoid future timing problems.

As far as the oil pump shaft goes, it's not that hard to drop the pump and correct that. I had to do that on one of my cars to make it all work properly. The gasket you need is cheap, so correcting that now would be very worthwhile.

[Wobbles1971]

Thanks Arne. All I have ever heard was, you must use the 280z mount when installing a 240z distributor onto a 280 block. Maybe thats just because people are so used to doing the ZX/w module swap, dunno.