Dwell Angle

I've been tuning up the massive inline 6 in the 63 American skier. The Mallory distributor plate lists a point gap of .024 and there are no dwell figures stamped. I was taught that the dwell angle is more critical than the point gap because of the coil saturation. When the points were set at .024 the dwell was less than 30 degrees when I closed the gap to .020 the dwell angle rose to about 36 degrees. I did some checking on the dwell for Ford inline 6's and they indicate a dwell of about 35-38 degrees. Should I be concerned with the dwell or just set the points to .024

Thanks

Merry Christmas

Eddie, Tim is right on the money. The point gap and dwell are two methods of accomplishing the same thing......coil saturation! You want to give the coil the longest period of time to charge up as possible while keeping arcing between the points to a minimum. The dwell method is the most accurate so if you have the means to check dwell, always use this method.