Rev limiting rotor

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Hadn't seen one of these in years, I mostly enjoy vintage British cars and they hardly, if ever used rev limiting rotors.

Working on a '74 BMW 2002 project and found a proper NOS Bremi rotor. I always thought these were clever; the flyweight moves outward w/ increasing revs until it contacts the upright contact and grounds the coil to the distributor rotor until revs decrease. Simple and almost fail safe. Pricey though, why many if not most are replaced with the basic ones.

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just a spring and centrifugal force, its such an elegant solution. Lines or code and 1000+ operations per second are undoubtedly more controlled and accurate and probably better for engine life, but I really enjoy super simple solutions. I also agree that they're a lot more expensive than a basic rotor arm, but the flipside of the argument is the very low cost of removing your rev limiter and gaining some performance in 2-3 minutes.
 
That thing shorts the ignition but fuel is still added, expect a big whoosh if not a boom when spark is allowed again. You should have seen the carnage from a broken ground wire in a distributor. Muffler unrolled.

Rod
 
My P1800 was supposed to use one but had a standard type in it. I kept having issues with cap/rotors and finally put the expensive rev limiting style on. I think even though it says you can substitute a regular rotor, for some reason, it should have this type instead.
 
Buy an MSD box with an adjustable rev limiter, may as well get a hot coil and better than stock wires, open up the spark plug gap and pick up a couple ponies. If it has to be stock then go ahead and use that rare piece.
 
Originally Posted by Gasbuggy
My P1800 was supposed to use one but had a standard type in it. I kept having issues with cap/rotors and finally put the expensive rev limiting style on. I think even though it says you can substitute a regular rotor, for some reason, it should have this type instead.

I agree. it is also a 5k ohm resistor and is used w copper wires w the resistor ends that the German makers all loved. With no other changes and a new coil, cap, plugs and wires, this rotor seemed to eliminate a very, very slight hesitation just off idle. It was so slight that no one but me would probably notice, but the slight flat spot is gone. The system works well as designed.
 
Originally Posted by wings&wheels
Hadn't seen one of these in years, I mostly enjoy vintage British cars and they hardly, if ever used rev limiting rotors


I haven't seen one for a long, long time either, but British cars and trucks were the only vehicles I've seen them on.

Where I served my apprenticeship we had a 105E Anglia van. I left when I came out of my time, and went back a year or so later, and they had a new apprentice. I jumped in the van to get some parts, went to overtake a car, and it just stopped revving ! I couldn't overtake and had to pull back in. I told the boss the van was running real bad, and he said he'd heard from customers that the boy was really thrashing the van, revving the snot out of it, so he installed the rev limiting rotor.

They were mainly used as a governor in industrial applications.
 
Originally Posted by Silk
Originally Posted by wings&wheels
Hadn't seen one of these in years, I mostly enjoy vintage British cars and they hardly, if ever used rev limiting rotors


I haven't seen one for a long, long time either, but British cars and trucks were the only vehicles I've seen them on.

Where I served my apprenticeship we had a 105E Anglia van. I left when I came out of my time, and went back a year or so later, and they had a new apprentice. I jumped in the van to get some parts, went to overtake a car, and it just stopped revving ! I couldn't overtake and had to pull back in. I told the boss the van was running real bad, and he said he'd heard from customers that the boy was really thrashing the van, revving the snot out of it, so he installed the rev limiting rotor.

They were mainly used as a governor in industrial applications.


Interesting. I did some searching an found same Lucas manufactured ones, seem to be used mostly on Jaguar. Thanks.
 
Yes, Lucas, so they would fit almost any Lucas dist. The governed rpm was stamped on the blade, but you could bend the tab to adjust.
 
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