Looks to me like a hot Wayne 6 cylinder with dual spark plugs, 12 lugs on the cap, and a few spark plug wires not installed.
I don't know, never saw one with dual plugs. But are there not 6 pairs of lugs on the distributor cap? 12 total?
that is a piece arrow distributor. It was a common hot rod practice to put those on engines with 2 plugs per cylinder. It is similar to the aftermarket W&H dual coil distributors that were made in the fifties and sixties. there is a spring loaded brush on the rotor that picks up the second coil from the ring inside, see the pic
they are probably running one plug per cylinder but using the dist as a dual coil unit. It gives more coil saturation time and thus hotter spark
Could it be that there are 6 spark plugs, and each pair of spark plug wires fires each spark plug twice? Actually, maybe an extended single spark.
I understand the arrangement of the plug wire spacing on the wires around the perimeter of the cap, so, I am assuming the 2 "inboard" wires go to coils? Interested to see a view of the internals without the cap...my flathead has a gennie, crab style distributor that has the strangest rotor i've ever seen, but this one has we scratch'n my head.
Following Mick's lead... @Cody Walls went all out on this one...but he does that with everything he puts his expertise to...he's very forthcoming with the details...not my area of expertise but exciting none the less...love the big picture when it comes to Hotrod/Custom... https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cody-walls-builds-32-ford-3-window-coupe-“the-ardun-killer-“.1161976/
Like Carl La Fong, I was all ready to suggest it was for a Nash Twin-Six. But some of the pictures I found online didn't look exactly the same. For one thing, the depth of the housing looks different. Here's a link to one that was posted here about 5 years ago. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/nash-twin-six-distributor-value.1006211/
For those who’s wondering , the distributor is a very early spalding made for the Wayne F Horning company for the Wayne 12 ports back in the early 50s , its a Nash twin-plug distributor cap , with a modified base to fit on a Chevy distributor , every other lobe is grounded off the shaft . it provide 2 distinct 3 cylinder coil circuits . . . doubling dwell time and maximizing coil saturation at high RPM. , it’s a very Frankenstein setup but works very well and it was a hotter spark than a mag in the early 50s ,
also the crazy part of this whole setup is if you switch the coil wires around , it puts the motor 180 out .
At the age of 14 ( 1967 ) in Australia my very first vintage car was a free 6 cylinder 1928 NASH . Real big car and i had no idea what i was doing except dismantling . ( learning curve ) The 12 sparkplugs and that big distributor cap where interesting. I remember lifting the cap and there was a extra new cap stuck under it . The automatic chassis lubricating system was interesting as well. Sold the whole car in pieces for $ 50. Anyhow when i moved to The Netherlands in 1978 i took the new cap with me. Sold it years later for good money.
Thanks Cody, for stepping in and giving us further clarification on a very cool and innovative approach to ignition. Outstanding.
Add me to that list of folks who say thanks. That's quite a setup. Not far off some of the dual point V8 distributors with 4 lobes on the distributor cam though.
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