Are there any other companies than Mallory for electronic distributors for a buick 400? I don't really wanna pay $295 for one, but i figure they're all gonna be that pricey.
MSD makes a billet distributor with a magnetic pickup, and a ready to run distributor for the 400-430-455. They are pricey. A better way to go is to send a points distributor to Dave Ray at www.davessmallbodyheis.com and have him convert it to MSD magnetic pickup. He will rebuild it soup to nuts, recurve it, and fit it with an adjustable vacuum advance, all for about 150.00. Dave was in the process of moving, so his business was down for awhile. I'm not sure if he is back up yet, but you could try contacting him. Here's a picture of his work
Just heard from Dave the Ignitionman. It will be mid to late July before he can start taking Distributors again. Watch the website. As soon as the address changes from Whittier California, to something else, you'll be good to go, and send your distributor.
The big failing with the MSD distributor for Buicks as I see it is the lack of vacuum advance. Running without vac advance on the street leads to overheating in almost all cases. I wrote MSD to see if a vac adv dist would be available, but they never answered. With no help there, the next distributor setup I'm gonna try will be a rebuilt stocker with points and an MSD 6AL. Although I oughta give one of the other ignition amplifier boxes a try. Right now I'm running a Mallory Unilite and MSD 6AL with no problems. It's a good running, fast starting setup and in view of the more than likely less than 5 grand shift points for the new engine, the points distributor with amplifier box will suffice. Sometimes I wonder if the companies who don't seem interested in their potential customers realize how much business they are losing. I don't ask for much or very often, but when a company does respond I usually spend my $$ with them.
C9, MSD has a ready to run distributor for the BBB. It has vacuum advance. It also uses a hard to replace module, that you can bypass to use with a box. Dave's distributors are a much better buy. That distributor pictured above is the one in my car now. That is an MSD magnetic pick up, and it plugs right into the MSD box. It was curved to my specs, and fitted with a fully adjustable vacuum advance. The distributor is better than new, and you can't beat the price.
Ditto. Makes a huge difference having a distributor custom curved for you combo, my car starts and runs so much better than it did even with a new stock distributor and pertronix, just no comparison. Save some money and wait for Dave.
There's always the old standby HEI. You can convert 350 Buick hei to 455 by changing the drive gear. You can convert 3.8 hei by changing the pickup and gear. Aftermarket curve kits are readily available. We use hei distributor with MSD conversion. The only drawback is that TA intakes need to be clearanced right on the left front top to clear the hei cap.
The only problem with the HEI, is that the curve is usually all wrong for our engines. Sometimes it takes more than changing springs and weights to get it right. That and the epoxy filled coil that tends to overheat and drop spark energy. That can be remedied with the MSD 8401, and a regular oil filled coil.
Go the the drop in unit for your dist from Jacobs . You still look stock or use a Stingewr like I did and hide your box in the fenderwell
