I was changing out my plug wires on the Belvy last night (1973 360, Mopar electronic ignition) and noticed the #1 plug wire is not on the terminal stamped #1 on the distributor..... It's one position off. All of the wires are in the correct sequence. Is this necessarily an issue? Seems to run good, but I seem to have a slight intermittent miss at idle and low rpms....even with the new wires installed.

 

Depending on where the distributor is turned, it may be advanced or retarded. They are firing in the proper order I assume the distributor has been turned to account for the placement so it fires at the right time.

Do you have a timing light? This way you can adjust the timing which should remedy your misses.

 

As long as you have enough movement in the vacuum advance to set timing, it's not an issue. It may be that the intermediate shaft (oil pump/ dist drive) was set in incorrectly.

On most engines, "it does not matter." Certain engines, like the odd fire V6's and some industrial 4 bangers have the cylinders "paired" I.E. every two plug wire towers are closer together. So on those engines you cannot rotate the plug wires just one tower

But on most 4, 6, 8 cyl. engines, you could just drop the dist. in "anywhere" and put no1 in where TDC "is." The main reasons on these engines that no1 is "specified" is so....

the assembly line folks can wrench, repeat

the plug wires "lay" nice

the tune-up and other mechanics see what they expect

 

I've read similar statements, but just trying to verify it wasn't an issue. Thanks