Let's not dwell on it!!!

[veryporky]

To dwell or not to dwell that is the question. Never really bothered with dwell before just set the points gap, timing, and off we go. However I've never serviced an MFI car before either so.....

Check Measure Adjust, the bible for MFI emphasises the importance of setting dwell on cars with that system. Right I thought let's go out and buy a dwell meter. Only trouble is nobody seems to do them these days. Old technology. So what is the general opinion, is just setting the gap with feelers adequate or does setting up with a dwell meter have a worthwhile effect?

Dwell angle is the number of dizzi degrees (not crankshaft degrees) that the points are closed for as far as I know So I reckon at a push I could do it with with an AVO meter if I mark the point where the points close on the crank pulley, move it round to the point where they open, mark that off on the pulley, measure the number of degrees between the marks and divide by 2 as the dizzi only moves at half engine speed. However this is just my theory which might well be flawed. So what is the general consensus please........

[hot66]

my 'gunson' timing light has a setting for dwell, & if I remember the whole thing only cost be about £25

[Gary71]

Go with the dwell!! Seems to give much more consistent results. You can use a meter, but the Gunsons do it dynamically which is more representative of real life.

I have a Gunsons CO meter and it has dwell and rpm settings in addition to CO.

Reminds me, must do a service!

[Nick Moss]

I use a Sealey TL93 timing light from Lawson HIS. It does Tach, dwell, advance and voltage

[Barry]

Draper do a Vehicle Multi-Meter that includes dwell, both Ian Donkin and I have them, and they've been fine, and still available.

I've not got it here at the moment, but will after the Fairmile meet next week: I'd be happy to ping you the part number if that's any help. From memory the meter also does tacho as well as the usual multi-meter functions, and was around £25-30 IIRC. I bought mine to keep in the car, to save messing up my decent Fluke multi-meter .