Hello all, I'd like to take a minute to document my ignition system woes and the long-term solution for the group.
Is it too much to ask for an ignition system to work for more than 2 years without maintenance? Does 1000 miles sound like a reasonable lifespan for a distributor? Not for me!
My original setup was a MSD ready to run distributor (8360) and a Blaster SS coil (8207). After installation it worked perfectly, however with a few years it corroded to the point that it was basically locked out on both vacuum and mechanical advance. I was running the wrong timing for a while… If you go to Google, look up “MSD distributor rust.” You’ll see a plethora of scurvy rusted dizzy internals.
The root cause of the issue with my distributor was the high humidity and as a result, rusting of the steel moving parts in the distributor. Where I live, rust is basically unavoidable, so I have to try my best to eliminate it. The iron moving parts of the mechanical advance were terribly corroded and there is no real way to permanently “fix” that.
Sure, I could have removed, cleaned and lubed the distributor again but who want to do that all the time. I'm sure there are those out there that will say, this upgrade isn't necessary, I've got a points distributor and it has run fine for 40+ years. That's not what I'm trying to accomplish here, my nickname is overkill
My solution was to get an MSD box that does all of the timing adjustments (advance and retard) digitally in the box and use the distributor only as an ignition trigger and spark distribution point. I would have preferred to go DIS, but I didn’t want to spend the extra R&D time for mounting of the coil brackets, triggers, sensors, wires, etc. Also, I know this is reliable and is easy to find parts in case of a breakdown. On the new distributor I locked it out and then sprayed the internals with CRC 3-36 rust inhibitor. I let it sit wet overnight upside down on a towel to let it dry. The spray got good reviews on the Amazons and should give another additional layer of protection to the magnet and pickup.
The only real hiccup I had was the electric fuel pump relay. It’s triggered by ignition pulses, which I previously acquired from the neg. terminal on the coil. With the MSD, it is a different signal that gets sent to the coil, so I had to move the trigger wire from the coil to the tach output from the MSD box.
I components I opted for are:
MSD 8530 6AL2 programmable ignition box (lightning in a box)
MSD 8253 Blaster 2 HVC coil (wicked hot)
MSD 85553 distributor (set to locked out)
I built a flat timing curve to set the initial timing, uploaded to the box and set the timing.
I created the my running timing curve, with vac advance and uploaded it to the box.
Verified the timing with the light, all good to go.
Verified the rotor phasing was good to go with the timing light, made a small adjustment.
Ready to hit the road!
It idles VERY well and has more pull than before, we’ll see how it fares the test of time but with no mechanical advance parts I feel more assured driving down the road.