I asked this in small block tech, maybe the wrong place, so I'll try here. I would like to upgrade to electronic ignition. I have a 65 Skylark with a 350(1970?). I see alot of discussion about these conversion kits like Pertronix, etc.. Would one of these be the way to go or should I purchase a different distributor new or from a junkyard? That is what I've done to to my previous cars, but they were Chevy small blox. Again what should I look for, what might I need? I want reliable more than performance at this stage of the game. Thanks for the help, Paul
Go with Adam's suggestion and you'll get both!! :Smarty: :TU: Can't do much better than Dave's distributors.....especially for the price.
I agree this seems to be the best path. But.....at this moment it is a little pricey for me. Is getting a used HEI distributor a bad idea? If not, what should I look for? What do I need to do? Thanks for your time and advice, Paul
An HEI is a good distributor to use. There are usually some minor clearance issues due to the size of the cap. The cap may hit the intake manifold, and you may need to change the upper radiator hose. They give a better spark than points, and you can run larger sparkplug gaps. They require full battery voltage unlike the points distributor, so you must swap out the resistance wire inline to the positive side of the your points coil. There is plenty of info in prior posts (this has been discussed many times before on this BB) Do a search on HEI, and it should come up. You can use an HEI from the 75-76 Buick 455's, or the 75-79 buick 350's (you must change the drive gear) The problem with running an HEI, is that usually they have a large amount of mechanical advance, which restricts how much initial advance you can run. This requires recurving the distributor. You say your looking more for reliability than performance. Why do you feel points are unreliable? Points require replacement and adjustment every so often, but they rarely leave you stranded, and if they do, replacement is easy. My advice is to save your money for one of Daves Conversions. His distributors will be custom curved to your application, and will be a drop in installation. BTW, you can run an MSD 6AL off of your points distributor(save up for that), and the points will last forever, because they are carrying almost no current. You'll get a much hotter spark this way, and you can upgrade to one of Daves Magnetic pickup distributors when funds allow.
great ideas Thanks for all the advice gentlemen. I will just keep my points till I can afford the conversion. Thanks again. Paul
