So I just bought a disty cap and rotor for the 84 brat. Walked into the shop.. "I need a distributor cap and rotor for an 84 Subaru GL" Got home... the cap doesn't fit on the distributor and the rotor is WAY Too tall. Gonna take them back.. but now I cant go to emission today. *Peeved*

Cap: Ref no: 4818 Serial: 41266 00347

Rotor: Ref no: 3790 Serial: 41266 01589

 

Any thoughts?

well for me the numbers dont really mean much but ive found that different brands of distys (nippendenso and hitachi) are a completely different setup, taller or shorter, or at least they are on the ea82's your best bet it to take the cap and rotor in with you and make sure to match it up.

I've got both 2WD and 4WD EA81's and the 2WD has a different distributor. I've read before that the 2WD is supposed to have a different advance curve. The cap for the one on the 2WD is physically shorter.

 

I'm guessing that you need one for 4WD and they gave you one for 2WD.

The caps weren't really different height. Just the rotor. Like Dragonwing said.. they have two different Disty's: Nippendenso and Hitachi. He gave me the cap/rotor for a Nippen and I have a Hitachi set-up. Problem fixed. New cap and rotor on the brat. Still getting Tach jump... *sigh* Looks like I'm gonna have to buy a new Disty before too long. Should be good to get through emission now I think. It's firing a lot smoother. Gonna check the timing one more time and head down to the station tomarrow. So here's my "tip of the day" - If you go to a parts store to buy a cap/rotor for your distributor.. make sure you know if you got a Hitachi or a Nippendenso. And make sure to tell the guy "I need a cap and rotor for a <year, make, model> and it's the <insert disty style here> model."

You might consider rebuilding your distributor; check out http://www.philbingroup.com.