Electronic Distributor by Stromberg UK

[andrew honychurch]

Yes I know about the adaptors that can fit onto the front of the camshaft. I friend has a T16 which was a very late release from the British Army and it is fitted with a crab and a standard ignition coil. It came to him like this and I would say it was a British Army conversion. Interestingly he is one of two owners of a T16 that has not experienced the curse of the hot failures. The other was a brand new crated T16 bought back in the 70s and that was fine too. I think if a T16 was a road car many owners would have experimented more with them, but as they usually get transported to events, and home again it sort of gets lived with, but my time has come. I searched on Mallory Ignition last night and see that they have re introduced the electronic ignition distributor so now I have 3 choices, an original Crab, Mallory or Stromberg

[andrew honychurch]

Well after yearning after one of these new Electronic E Fire Distributors from Stromberg mine duly arrived on friday. A thing of great beauty and packaging almost to match an Apple Iphone, all gave me the feeling of money well spent.


After unwrapping it I decided it could wait until saturday when I had a slot to be able to do the job. T16 had refused to start a week ago after standing for 7 months so finally I had had enough of the distributor and coil idosyncracies so contacted Royal Kustom in Bournemouth. They are Flathead experts and I am not affiliated to them at all but have been most helpful. Tobin Jones actually put me onto Jim a while back after he solved his errant T16.


I had forgotten how tricky it is to get into the front of a T16 engine area and all of a sudden my enthusiasm for fitting this dimmed slightly. However, I soldiered on, and as I had purchased a Petronix Coil and hi spec plug leads from Jim as well set about fitting it in place. Its actually a seriously easy job, Jim had kindly numbered each lead, fitted the distributor ends on already and left me some spare to feed through the conduits on each head before fitting a super looking terracotta NGK plug cap.


I had to run a 12v volt ignition feed to the red lead on the new distributor and connect the black lead to the minus on the coil. Remember the T16 is 12 volt negative earth and only steps down to 6 v for the coil which I was not utilising anyway.


I switched on the ignition and pressed the starter and pow wow she started immediately and settled into a nice but unsteady idle. I was a bit concerned as to why she was not running perfectly sweetly but after pulling the plugs and cleaning them , they were all a bit sooted up from the last time it was misfiring on the old set up I gave it another go. This time a run around the field.


Still not perfect performance and so I pulled the plugs again. Yet again they were sooty, not oily just sooty. Ummh, wondering whether my new super spark system was upto scratch! Then I figured that the fuel had been in the T16 for probably 15 months. I reasoned that if that was in my Jaguar XJ12 from bitter experience it would misfire like a dog, so decided to treat her to 5 gallons of nice new petrol Well as I switched tanks and there was no dilution as the new tank had been empty the performance uplift was immediate. Much more power and no misfiring, perhaps a little fluffy at idle, but that could be the plugs being dirty as I didnt clean them or indeed the carb setting up. Either way, it appears to have solved the run and stop issued that so many T16s suffer from and if I fiddle around with the carb I feel sure I will get just as I want it.

So all in all , I have to say I am very well pleased with the product. Perhaps, its an indulgence on a vehicle that I really dont use that much, but there really is nothing worse than taking a vehicle to a show and it fails to perform.

I shall update the forum on any other issues I find with the dizzy.

[Andrew Rowe]

Hi Andrew, what is the cost of this setup?, you will also find a new set of plugs and adjusting the idle screws at the base of the carb , will get it running even better,
Also is the electronic alloy housing, a direct fit for the protrusion of the longer Camshaft and no need for an adapter ? and if you have a shorter Camshaft already fitted, is there a different model housing that would be ordered? Cheers Andrew.

[andrew honychurch]

The distributor was about £290 including tax and the leads and coil were of course extra. I shall be ordering a set of plugs on monday. As far as I know they were options for 2 bolt or three bolt, but not sure whether you can fit without the adaptor if you need one.

Take a look at the website.
https://www.stromberg-97.com

it may answer your questions.

Andrew

[Andrew Rowe]

Looks like a good product, even I could be convinced to change, Cheers Andrew.

[Bob Carriere]

Went to pertronix on the rebuilt chev 261 and love it....

The NOS 216 spark plug wires could not handle the 40k volts and were shocking to touch so went with modern black 8mm.

Had to regap the spark plugs (new AC 44) to 40 thou and suddenly idled much better.

Running fine ever since.....5 years ago...

[andrew honychurch]

Well just back from the Headcorn Combined Ops Event and T16 ran great. IN fact its the first time from memory that it has not stopped after some time and had to cool down. In other words the distributor is running fine. Mixture not right, and I am planning on a strip down of the carb to clean it out I guess it would do no harm. Anyway, here we are on the way back from the show.