Technical 392 distributor in a 331 Hemi

A lot of you probably know that I really like "Flattop" Mallory dual point distributors. When a real nice polished one came up on eBay a couple of weeks ago with a reasonable "Buy-it-Now" price, I grabbed it, as I needed one for my 331 early hemi. No matter that it was for a 392, I figured I could cut down the shaft to make it fit. I was talking to my neighbor about this, and he asked why I wanted to cut it down when we could probably make a spacer for it. That way, I would be able to use it on my 331 but it could still be used for a 392 sometime in the future.

I measured a few things and found that the 392 distributor was .400 inches longer than the "low block" distributor. I purchased a piece of .500 thick aluminum and we went to work. This is the result. It fits perfectly, and although I haven't run the engine yet, I see no reason why it won't work. I'm sure glad I talked to my neighbor about this, as I would have ended up butchering a perfectly good 392 distributor.

 

Nice fix.

 

Did the same thing for the 392 Vertex mag in my 354 . . .
Went 200 mph . . . Works fine.

 

Spacer was my first thought, glad to see the end result should work fine. Looks nice work on the spacer build.

 

Veeery interesting!..........and clever! I like it.

Ray

 

Yeah, have done the same, but we machined a groove and put a thin O ring under the flange!

 

That sounds like an improvement, but we don't have a mill. We'll probably be OK because I don't think they had it from the factory (and this will be a mostly stock engine).