Thread: What is dwell?
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Old 11-18-2006, 01:27 AM
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Re: What is dwell?

A dwell meter's primary purpose is proper adjustment of contact points on an old breaker-point type distributor.

Dwell is duty cycle, on-time. When you set up a carburetor such as an E4ME, it is used to check the duty cycle of the M/C solenoid. When you set the dwell meter on the 6-cylinder scale for a carb adjustment, a dwell of about 30 degrees is equal to about a 50% duty cycle, in other words, the solenoid is engaged 50% of the time.

On the old small block Chevy with breaker-point ignition, you also would want to set the dwell angle to 30 degrees, meaning the points were making contact for 30 degrees of crankshaft rotation.
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