best distributor for the buck
The Mopar distributor/ECU is much harder to retrofit to an early points car and is much more expensive than HEI, and less reliable, all for a weaker spark (but acceptable). But, it would make many guys here happy, even though not original for your year. Decide what their thumbs-up is worth to you.
Bill, i have to disagree with some of your comments. Retrofitting a stock electronic mopar ignition into a points mopar requires only 2 wires be hard wired out of the control box. These i believe go to ignition switched only hot, and to the coil. This is hardly rocket science. The remaining 2 wires go to the distributer pickup module. The 5th a think a green/red wire is unused. I may have it incorrect as to here one of the 2 hard wires go, but i know i am correct about the 5th wire and the 2 that go to the distributor. Thats pretty freakin easy. Theres schematics on how to wire this up all over the internet. It is a bit more work in adapting a GM HEI to make it all appear as tho it belongs there.
The mopar electronic is a pretty reliable system. Be sure to ground your ignition module very well to the fire wall. Never had any go poof on me,, and i ran them for years, however my dads lil red express we did a frame off resto had 10k on it since the resto and had an orange box go poof. Its electronics it happens.
Yes the mopar electronic has a weak spark. The 6V ballast resistor, a leftover from points causes this, but is required because otherwise you will burn out the mopar module.
One has to understand that when the HEI was developed GM, like all the automakers was facing a grim future with low compression ratios, an OPEC oil embargo, and new strictor emissions compliance laws looming in the future with the EPA. Mopar and Ford went with the 6V ballast setup electronic ignitions thinking rightly so that no points would equal less emissions issues between tuneups because point dwell angle is no longer an issue. GM on the other hand, looked at the advantage of no longer needing a ballast or resistor wire, and ran with it.
GM engineers figured ok electronic ign, no points needed, no need for a resistor wire or ballast resistor to protect the points from burning out. Removing this as an obstacle they looked at making the spark as hot as they could to make the fuel more completely burn. This was for a few reasons. They were trying to eke out a bit of power from the low compression turds they were forced to make to run on low octane gas, and be emissions compliant, get fuel economy up a bit as this was the era of the first oil crisis. The nice thing is this is now 40+ year old tech that still works great as a cheap , yet hot ignition setup. Again i say MSD is good if you have the cash to do it, but HEI 4 pin with a mopar dizzy cant be beat for cheap hot spark if you dont have the money for an MSD.
Matt