Flathead "ELCO TWIN" unit.........distributor

BUBBAS IGNITION

BUBBAS IGNITION

Well-known member
Over time we have got in some pretty cool stuff for the flathead engine and one of my favorites is the right angle front drives.
The "ELCO TWIN" is one of the cooler ones out there!! Uses a dual coil " autolite 16 cylinder distributor. ( must be a popular one as i have three apart in the building right now)
Step one is to clean everything ( ultrasonic tank) , more pics as we get er done.
Questions??? ask away............:)
 

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The angle drive for mine looks quite a bit different. Also the lettering on mine sticks up from the surface; cast in, not stamped.
Stan
 
Back in 64 I was running a stock car (46) Ford with a Chrysler Spitfire flat 6. 264ci + .125. I cut the cam in half and tirned one end around and welded it back together right in the block. I fired 2 cyl to once. 16--25-34. I picked up a marine dist just like that, not a right angle, and made it fit the spitfire. Dual coil, it was just like 2 dist in one. fired off both ends of the rotor, I used 6 of the holes in the cap and put the other 6 to ground. Talk about low end torque. Walt
 
You can make a dual distributor timing cover out of a stock one. This places one distributor on each side of the engine, saw one some place, pretty simple when you think about it. But that's a cool one, Bubba, never saw one before.
 
Looks like a hand-made unit made from a stock distributor plate and some lengths of square aluminum tubing. Not cast like the more common angle drive or dual distributor units.
 
V8COOPMAN said:
Not to take anything away from the intake, but how 'bout them KINMONTS, front AND rear? DD

Click to expand...

Yeah, this chassis is certainly the bees knees.

On another note, has anyone ever done dyno testing on a mill with the Elco Twin Plug set up?

Looks boss, but I'm curious if it also adds HP.

I'd assume cam choice would be important in order to maximize the ignition set-up.
 
I think Don Orosco is reproducing an angle drive that works with the Nash dual fire set up. I imagine a fellow has to dig around a lot to find those old buggers.

Eddie Meyer got into the boat racing there for a good bit and probably had dual plug heads for the boat engines.
 
The dual plug brings more to the story other than hp. By using twin coils that makes it really two four cylinder ignition systems. This would allow longer periods of coil saturation or build up offering hotter spark all thru the rpm range especially at higher rpm. The coils would run cooler and offer a hotter spark output.....

Now the positioning of the dual plugs is another discussion that could go on and on for sure.....using the Nash 16 cap etc the firing cycles between cylinders at the head would be spaced at 45 degrees between sparks...
Anyone wish to elaborate on hp and these events ???
 
The Elco twin engine and distributor was the brainchild of Evans and Letner. Bert Letner ran a flathead roadster back in the '40s, Troy Ruttman was his driver, the car was unbeatable. Troy of course went on to Indy, and did very well. Bert Letner was a car owner threat in the Jalopy days when we all ran 21 stud flatheads, his son Danny Letner drove the car, a '34 Ford coupe. He was a top driver in the Calif Jalopy Association and ran at Culver City speedway when the races were televised and Bill Welsh was the announcer. those were the fun days. I was just a young kid, but I drove there and all over Southern California, Balboa Stadium in San Diego was one of my favorites. Jack Clegg
 
A frind of mine has a set of Elco hears on his roadster. I had to clearance the combustion chamber for the L-100 cam. Chamber didn't look any different than the Offy, Edelbrock chambers. In modern engines with dual plugs the second plug usually fires 3-4 degrees after the primary plug.
 
Back in the mid 60's dad raced a flathead powered boat. He used a twin 4 cyl dissy set up with two coils. The housing was sand cast and it had two right angle drives in it for the dissys. I think the dissy were out of an Austin or some thing similar. The set worked great and helped with keeping the water out of the dissys!!. I had them on a Merc motor in my roadster for a while but being so high up I couldn't run a fan, so driving on the street was limited.
 
BUBBAS IGNITION said:
The dual plug brings more to the story other than hp. By using twin coils that makes it really two four cylinder ignition systems. This would allow longer periods of coil saturation or build up offering hotter spark all thru the rpm range especially at higher rpm. The coils would run cooler and offer a hotter spark output.....

Now the positioning of the dual plugs is another discussion that could go on and on for sure.....using the Nash 16 cap etc the firing cycles between cylinders at the head would be spaced at 45 degrees between sparks...
Anyone wish to elaborate on hp and these events ???
Click to expand...

What do you base the statement that there is 45 degrees between sparks? Have you run it?

OK the rotor may be setup with a 45 degress difference but that can be taken care of by the cap.
And when looking at mine the breakers seam to be placed almost opposite of each other.

Her is my friends Elco Twin Flathead (yes he have those odd discbrakes to ;-) )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgjEXi81Oo&context=C363f4fbADOEgsToPDskL3WWiEmXgyxzsNXh3Kkih7

file.jpg



Here is a picture of a Australian Dual plug installation Home made adapter.

file.jpg
 
Sure, make sense about the coils having time to re-charge, cool or what ever.

In regards to cam, wouldn't you want a bigger cam to get more charge in there? My logic is that could the second firing cause a lean condition if the first plug ignited most of the fuel charge with the first spark?

Or is the timing so quick that it doesn't matter. Really curious about that.
 
Yes i was refering to the rotor not the actual spark triggering plate. I will when i get this one back together ,run on a machine a do a couple pics and video of the actual cylinder spark spacing etc.
Wow your lower picture is using two grant flamethrowers etc ( we do those for a flathead as well) that would require 4 coils and two complete Grant units . 4 sets of contacts or i guess you could just use half each one and dual coils.
The visual aspect is worth way more than the hp increase..... rbg :eek:




Mr 42 said:
What do you base the statement that there is 45 degrees between sparks? Have you run it?

OK the rotor may be setup with a 45 degress difference but that can be taken care of by the cap.
And when looking at mine the breakers seam to be placed almost opposite of each other.

Her is my friends Elco Twin Flathead (yes he have those odd discbrakes to ;-) )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdgjEXi81Oo&context=C363f4fbADOEgsToPDskL3WWiEmXgyxzsNXh3Kkih7

file.jpg



Here is a picture of a Australian Dual plug installation Home made adapter.

file.jpg
Click to expand...
 
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