(From LUCAS World Service News Letters, January–December 1960)

This distributor, designed for eight cylinder engines and currently being fitted to the Daimler SP250 sports car, is a new unit in the Lucas range.

The 20D8 utilises two contact breakers, one making whilst the other is breaking, operated by an eight lobe cam. Automatic advance is by means of a centrifugal mechanism and vacuum unit and both a lower bearing bush and an upper ball race are fitted. From the illustration it will be seen that each automatic advance weight has two spring anchoring posts and it is important to note that only the weak spring is anchored to the toggle plate. The strong shorter spring is secured across the two weights by means of the additional post.

Ignition Timing

This is carried out on the contact set which is furthest from the vacuum unit and is last to open when the distributor shaft is moved in the specified direction of rotation.

Maintenance

This is the same as for other Lucas distributors, the contact gap setting being 0.014–0.016 in. (.356–.406 mm.) which should be checked after the first 500 miles. It is, of course, necessary to check each contact gap in turn, not forgetting to turn the engine until the second contacts are wide open after checking the first set.

(diagram provide in magazine)