[tmoss]

Originally posted by Nixon1
With the current rotor being damaged like that, the new cap and rotor should definitely make a difference. The question is, what made the rotor roast like that.

The proper term for that is "carbon tracking" and it happens in high voltage electrical equipment insulation also. One thing that will start the process is if you have a cool night with high humidity air in the distributor cap. You start the car and the engine starts to heat. Well, at some point that high humidity in the cap and condense in the cap or on the rotor or both. This encourages the high voltage to start carbonizing the insulation in a search for a shorter path to ground (through the rotor to the distributor steel shaft). It can also cause cross-fire from one cylinder on the cap to the other across the insulation. Any kind of air void or crack in the plastic rotor or cap created in the molding process will REALLY encourage this to happen too.