The Wayne Cox HP Trick

Written by Wayne Cox

"The distributor shaft has several pieces screwed together that the rotor mounts on. There is some slop in them. If the slop all stacks up in the same direction, your rotor may not be optimally aligned with the electrode inside the cap when the ignition fires. Having your timing advanced through mechanical adjustment and/or an ECU will aggravate the problem.

"Here's what'cha do: Remove dist. cap. Remove rotor; be careful, if your rotor is stuck on the shaft *do not* twist too hard on it. You can break it like I did :( There's a screw in the end of the shaft - loosen, twist counter-clockwise against the bolt slop and retighten. Put the rotor back on and twist it counter clock wise while tightening. I slotted out the hole in my rotor for some extra adjustment. I verified this using a cap with a hole cut in it and a timing light to see the position it fired."

Further comments by Pat Griffith:

Wayne went on to say to double-check your timing after doing this to make sure you didn't twist the rotor or anything. That's about it.

He also had a disclaimer that said this works on the '91-'93 SR20s but wasn't sure about the different distributors on '94+ SR20s but that it should still apply. :)

Sounds more complicated than it actually is -- takes maybe 15 minutes.