Hot Rods Does anyone still make a decent American made distributor for a SBC?

No, well I mean if you keep driving and let them go to pot, sure...but every 1-2 oil changes, just clean them, set the dwell and timing ...\they run long time, taste good too

 

Pop the cap, probably has moisture in it...then try to eliminate the moisture. I/e better quality of cap...etc

 

WD40 works well for that. Or WD45

 

Do you use the WD45 (a classic Allis-Chalmers tractor) as a 'last resort' to run over and crush the offending distributor cap...........

Ray

 

Driving in a gully washer ,once started and running , doesn't affect mine either , only on initial start up is there a problem.....

 

We live along the Texas Gulf coast. That means high humidity (95% isn't a rare occurrence) and typical rain storms dropping anywhere from 2" and hour to as high as 4" (and during tropical storms and hurricanes 6") an hour.

In the early '80s, I had some issues with moisture in the distributor cap. Began after I installed a larger (and wider) radiator. My engine had a front mounted distributor. Seems the wider radiator allowed the fan to pull water back onto the distributor when I drove through a hard rain.

At first, I thought water was getting under the cap through a gap between cap and distributor body. So I replaced the cap along with the thin flat rubber gasket this particular engine used to seal the cap. No help. Turns out the cap was sealed and no water was getting between cap and distributor.

What was happening was that when the engine was at operating temps and cold water was blown back onto the distributor cap by the fan...... The temperature differential allowed condensation to form inside the cap. In other words, the distributor cap was sealed air and water tight...... It just became a terrarium with water condensing inside when cooler rain water was blown back onto the warm cap.

The fix was drying it out completely and spraying a goodly coat of WD-40 inside the cap and onto the distributor beneath it before putting the cap and rotor back on. And as insurance, I also adapted a fan shroud to this car that kept water from being blown back onto the distributor when driving in hard rains.

Best regards,

Harry

 

Vertex Magneto with Automatic Advance

 

I had a Accel 37000 dist. in my modified stock car , used a MSD box with a MSD coil, had to remove the trailing point set and had a spark that was really hot . Also the advance curve is easy to set up . You can usually find them for under 100 bucks at flea markets . Spark was steady past 8 grand.

 

PERFORMANCE DISTRIBUTORS from summit and jegs 50,000 volts.must have it 15-20 years

 

I think the best electronic distributor conversion ever made was the Hays Stinger conversion. We ran them in our race cars and I still have one in my 40 Ford that has been in use for over 30 years with absolutely no problems at all. That being said I have had very good luck with Pertronix if they are properly installed.

 

I hear a lot of responses that involve MSD boxes, but I haven't heard anyone mention MSD distributors. I have used almost all of the current dizzys and the week link on all of them is the control module. The MSD dizzy is made in Texas, has a hallo control system and they don't just quit working. Of all the dizzys I have used MSD is heads above them all and not over priced. Never had one fail.

 

I thought MSD was bought by an investment company and move their manufacturing overseas? Correct me if this is wrong.

 

Without getting into a long, drawn out tale about it, just allow me to say that I had an issue with use of a MSD product that was sorta part my fault and part MSD's fault because of incorrect application mounting info.
But when I got past the flak from the customer service people into the upper ranks with my problem, it was solved at no cost to me and a great solution to the problem.
So long as they back up their merchandise like they did for me, I'll continue to use and recommend their products.

 

I thought Holley bought MSD.

 

primed 34 and Roothawg, you are both correct. MSD, Mallory and a great many other companies are now owned by Holley......

https://www.holley.com/brands/

As for just what is made where any more...... I haven't really kept up with all the recent changes. Last I heard some years back, MSD was still making their ignition boxes and one of their coils here Stateside. At that time, there were problems with some of the Blaster II coils, as MSD had shifted production of them to a plant in Mexico. They were still made to same standards, but QA / QC was relaxed in order to keep production high and defective coils that would have been tested and pulled from distribution when they were made here Stateside...... Began getting into the supply chain and making it into the hands of end users. From what I heard, MSD would make them good if you bought a bad coil, but it was an unnecessary hassle to deal with. I have no idea where the MSD distributors now marketed are made, so cannot comment there.

In fairness to MSD, a few years back, there were counterfeit 'MSD' ignition boxes being sold on e-Bay and elsewhere. These were cheap ChiCom knockoffs and were sold as MSD 6AL boxes. Here is a google search where you can go to some links that show the differences in 'real' MSD boxes and the counterfeits......

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=counterfeit+msd+6al

https://www.thecounterfeitreport.com/product/244/MSD-6AL-Ignitions.html

Anyway, I am not concerned about quality issues nor who owns MSD and Mallory nor where they are made now of days, as I have made a point over the past 20 years of locating vintage NOS parts that I know are the genuine article and were made here Stateside. Have enough of these in addition to some good used examples to last myself and my youngest son a lifetime, so no worries. One of these days if I manage to get around to inventorying all this stuff...... If I have more than we will ever need, I'll post the extras here on the HAMB classifieds at a good price in case anyone might need them.

Best regards,

Harry

 

I might try one of these Vertex Z6 CD boxes with my points distributor and Delco coil....

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...1321358874397&utm_content=GSAPI+5c9d01757455a

 

Not necessarily misguided, no doubt these countries are capable of building products the equal of US made items but China in particular is notorious for "fudging" on the quality level to make a couple of extra pennies per unit. The retailer needs to inspect the product before and after the contract to make sure it is being adhered to

 

I might be Old fashion but I got the Factory Dual/point
Tack Drive Dist. with the Needle Bearings from the Chevy
Dealer.
when it first was put on the Vette's
I have used it on my Race Car for about 6 years
than on my Merc.for 40 years & last year I had to Change the Points
and Cond.

I think that the Point Dist is a Good Unit, if you Don't like it
There is ONLY one way to Go, That is...........................................
VERTEX

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Foul

 

You may have a moisture problem, took awhile to figure this out in my drag car, it would backfire under load after not running for a few weeks the temporary fixed was changing cap and spraying WD40 in the housing.
It kept nagging me.
Figured out the engine setback put the sbc cap under the rear gap of a poor fitting fiberglass hood and the cap was getting hosed. (Been covering the engine now under the hood even if it looks like rain)
Trouble stopped after pulling the distributor and standing it upside down to dry out. Moisture would gather in the base and had no way out. If it ever does this again, going to drill a drain hole in the base.
Always have good results with MSD products and really good customer service, they have went above my expectations resolving a problem with a HEI big cap distributor that I found at a swap meet for $75.00, sent it in for repair with a note of what it was doing with my phone number to give me the cost of repair before fixing ( got a circuit board ) it came back No Charge

 

I thought I had came back and updated this, but apparently my dimentia prevented that.

I went out a few days later and it busted off and ran fine ever since. I tend to agree with the moisture problem. I'll just throw a can of wd-40 in the toolbox for safe measure.

So after all of my ranting and raving about Pertronix, it wasn't their products having the issue.

 

I went searching for the " BOSCH BLUE #00012 ,@ Summit and O'reilly . they do not recognize that part number ?
I installed a Pertronix # D130711 with Ignitor ll and Flame Thrower Coil in my 29 Ford with 302 Ford engine , has been working fine for about 5 years , parked it one evening , next morning no spark , I contacted Pertronix Help Tech by Email , They responded " if the Ignitor ll was the problem , it should show Burn Marks on the plastic housing or smell of electric burn , neither was apparent , so I'd like to buy the BOSCH Coil , before replacing the Ignitor ll . is there a number for it other than the 00012 ? I do have an OHM Meter and Test Light also Continuity Tester , if the Flame Thrower Coil is defective , how to test it ?

 

That's the PN you're looking for. There are specialty vendors online you can buy from - VW guys, small engine guys, etc. There seems to be a question over where some of the new coils are made (like everything else) so if you're worried about that and don't want to take the vendor's word on it, look on your favorite auction site. The last one I bought was from there and was NIB, I liked the fact that I could see in the pictures that yes, this was a new coil in a dusty old box that had been sitting on a shelf for 15 years. It's on my '57 now.

All that being said, are you sure that coil will work with the Ignitor II? It has 3.5-4 ohms of resistance - aren't the Flame Thrower coils super low resistance?

 

Bosch 9220081083
google is your friend.

 

3.0 ohm coil. Ignitor II and III use a 0.6 ohm coil iirc.

FYI for anyone: Always keep in mind the standard in a 12 volt contact point system was pretty much a ~1.5 ohm primary winding ignition coil, and ~1.5 ohm ballast in a divider network, so as to have a hotter spark during engine starting. Once the engine starts the primary ignition circuit ran on ~ 3.0 ohms so as to avoid burning things up.

 

You all are on a traditional hotrod site. I don't understand. You have problems and somebody mentions magneto and your all, !!. Magneto's have been around forever and they are good enough for aircraft, have been for EON'S. A mag will get you home when the battery is dead. A mag is cheaper than all those super adapt-it conversions and takes up less space and makes MORE spark the faster it turns and takes ONE wire. Coil is in the mag. Had a guy the other day bought a car with a Vertex in it and he gave it to me. Said he couldn't make it (a race car) run right with the mag. So bought a MSD box. I said if you can't make it run with this mag, you got other problems. He said take it it's junk. I said ok! Never saw a Petronix or HEI light a nitro engine. Or an airplane. LOL. We didn't win WW2 with HEI's.

 

When I ran the stock car I drilled four 3/16 " holes around side of distributor cap . This stopped moisture and ozone gas buildup in cap.

 

Almost forgot , on my Caddy I run a 53 cast iron distributor with Petronix and my own advance curve which I come up with years ago, This is running off a Jacobs ignition module and coil . I run a .055" spark plug gap . This provides a strong spark through out rpm range which on the Caddy is 6500 and sometimes 7000 rpm .

 

Usually isn't. Thanks for informing us of the "fix".

Ben

 

Yeah, but jets run HEI's and jets are traditional.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/who-really-invented-the-jet-engine/

But, with that said I own a Vertex.