From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Issues with battery ignition distributor tracking and proposing further tests on a mushroom rotor.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\R\2December1927-February1928\ Scan064 | |
| Date | 19th December 1927 | |
| To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from EFC. c. BJ. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Wov [handwritten] ORIGINAL [stamp] EFC3/T19.12.27. BATTERY IGNITION DISTRIBUTOR TRACKING. We think there can be no doubt, judging from the tests reported in our EFC1/T22.10.27, that the mushroom rotor is better than the present standard from the point of view of prevention of tracking on the rotor. we have had one or two cases of rotor tracking, but no known [handwritten] case of distributor head tracking on a customer's car. We propose to run a distributor head with no H.T. delivery, i.e. central H.T. wire connected, but no wires connected to the distributing terminals, so that sparking is continuously taking place inside, and confirm whether the use of the mushroom rotor is better from the point of view of tracking in this open circuit condition. We think it would be a good idea to have the safety gap in some other position than inside the distributor, which inside gap, as previously pointed out, does not act as a safety gap, or at any rate does not act in the way intended. If the safety gap were near to the coil and of the same length it would probably prevent open circuit sparking entirely in the distributor head, but this we can prove. Of course we do not know that the failures which hxm [crossed out] have occurred have been as a result of an open circuit condition, in fact we think it probable that they have not. We think that they have occurred in normal running with all connections normal and with the sparking plugs in normal condition. You will remember that the Remy ignition unit has a wipe distributor. EFC. | ||