Which Electronic Distributor Would You Recommend

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Rocket

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I am converting my 69 Barracuda 340 4 speed to electronic ignition. It is mainly stock and will use the stock air cleaner. It will be used to cruise and will not be used as a drag car. I will use an MSD 6AL box. Any recommendations on which electronic distributor to get to allow it to fit with the stock air cleaner assembly and allow good street manners? Any to stay away from?

- stock rebuilt with modified advance curve (FBO)
- MSD
- Mopar
- PerTronix
- Proform
- others

Some distributors I see like the MSD 8534 do not have the vacuum pot which I believe would be less ideal on the street.

Thanks
 
FBO package system for ease of maintinence,reliability.....i don't know that
you'll get much benefit from the MSD 6AL just crusing around other than looks
 
The Mopar Performance distributor uses factory cap, rotor and magnetic pick so those parts are as near as the local parts store. This distributor also has a fully adjustable mechanical advance like the more expensive offerings from MSD, Mallory or Accel.

FBO will set up a factory distributor to the specs of your engine but if you do mods down the road it will likely need to be modified again. Plus the cost of a factory electronic distributor plus the FBO tuning service will likely cost more than the MP distributor.

I agree with mrbill00, the MSD box is not going to buy you anything on an otherwise stock engine. I would recommend that you go with the MP kit that includes the distributor, wiring harness and performance ECU.
 
Here's my experience with the Mopar Performance kit I bought for my 383 from Summit. Of course this was before I new about this website.
I hooked everthing up for the first time. Car wouldn't start, no spark. Started checking the wiring etc., got to the ballast resistor, no resistance at all. Called Mopar Performance customer service number, asked if they would send a replacement. Guy said you have to box everything up and send it back to where I bought it! Screw that! I already got the distibuter in and wired. I'll put my old one back on, I said maybe they should check the quality of their parts a lot closer. He said sorry. Then I said you should check your instructions in your manual because the distributer rotation is in the oposite direction of what it should be! He didn't know what to say....In frustration I hung up, thinking I may never by another part from them.
Luckily, my next door neighbor came over with his Clayton manual and found my wires out of order. Once we got that straightened out the car started.

One problem I had which would say was MY fault was that the orange electronic box I had installed was bolted to the inner fender. One day I went out to start the car it was dead, no spark! Now what? It turns out the grounding from the box to the fender was not enough. So I moved it to the back and attached that braided ground wire to it that goes to the motor.

I dont know what luck other have had with Mopar Performance but it seems the quality and servive is not so good.

Kim.
 
I hear good things about FBO's stuff. Best of all, if you can tell him
your exact setup and how you are going to use the car he can set
your advance up perfectly tailored to your setup.
 
I have never been impressed with MPs tech support but your issues with the electronic ignition sound like yours and not MPs.

The original poster is converting from points to electronic so to use FBOs service he will need to buy a distributor and pay FBO to tune it for him. The MP distributor is fully adjustable to support future upgrades and is set up pretty close for a stock engine out of the box.

A complete kit with wiring harness, ecu and distributor is a little over $200 at Jegs or Summit. If he decides to go with the MSD box two the distributor only is about $160.

The Accel, Mallory and MSD distributors are very good and are all in one (no ecu or MSD box needed) but they are more expensive and replacement parts are going to be avaialble at the corner parts store.
 
i usually put together my own set up from stuff i have here. but if your buying new i would probably go with the MP that has an adjustable vac. advance. that way you can tune your curve some. i heard good and bad about fbo. know a couple guys that have them and they eat the modules for some reason. but its not like the MP orange boxes don't go all the time either. i'm also not sold on what fbo does to the dist for you curve. the mp units have adjustable plates and vac. advance in them so thats an easy afternoon job to tweak your curve yourself.

so basically i would go either MP or FBO since they are stock style parts and will be easy to get replacement parts if something happens out cruisin.
 
Go with the MP kit, after all, we're talking a mostly stock motor here, right ?. Keep it simple, and enjoy it. Pretty basic install. I've never had a problem with this kit.
 
Thanks for your suggestions. The MSD box I already have so this is why I was planning to use it (hidden under the dash).

Any interference issues with the MSD or Mallory units anyone knows of when using the stock 69 4 barrel air cleaner? The distributor is pretty close to the back of the air cleaner from what I remember (car is currently apart).

Are the MP distributors springs and advance weights accessable under the rotor or does the distributor have to come apart?
 
I would use the new Mopar Perf distributor and a chrome box. Wish they would put the chrome box in the kit and get rid of the crappy orange box.
 
I have the FBO stuff in my car and it performs flawlessly for my application. As for the FBO stuff frying boxes I seriously doubt it happens as often as the MP kit. I bought the MP kit with the orange box and it fried within a week. That's why I went with the FBO system. You get a 2 year warranty on all the electrical parts. You won't get that from MP. Some tool on the other line will not have a clue what you are talking about as apparent in a previous post. Don's customer service is great, a real mopar person on the other end of the phone.

For a stock running car IMO the FBO system is a better buy with a better warranty. If you don't know how to curve your own distributor then the FBO is very reasonable since it is tuned to your car specifically.

You should get an electronic voltage regulator as well since you are converting over to electronic ignition. The stock mechanical ones won't cut it.
 
Rocket said:
Are the MP distributors springs and advance weights accessable under the rotor or does the distributor have to come apart?
Click to expand...

The advance weights don't change. There is adjustable slot that limits the amount of advance. The springs and slot are under the pickup plate. I didn't have to take anything apart to tune mine. A pair of needle nose plier to R&R the springs through the access hole and the spacers fit through the hole too along with the allne wrench to tighten it down afterwards.
 
The adjustment sounds easy enough. I assume this ison the MP distributor. Is a stock unit the same? I cannot recall it has been a while since I played with one.

ANyone know if the other aftermarket variety will interfere with a stock 69 340 air cleaner?
 
i bought a davis unified ignition, chrysler tri power ignition. I origionally bought the big hei unit, but then realized that it won't fit in an a-body. Mailed it back and they built a new distributor to match the specs of my engine and mailed it to me, and refunded the difference. i havent had any problems with it. my main interest in it was that it cleaned up the engine bay because the control unit is mounted on the distributor and the coil bolts to the intake. However, i'm not sure about replacement parts. Also, the distributors are built from used cores.

http://www.performancedistributors.com/

Steve
 
I have interference issues with the MSD pro billet dist (8388). It is super close to the windshield wiper motor. I had to trim the top nub of the wires to get it to fit. And now after I installed the TTi's-they hit the steering box, so I tried to space the mounts 1/4" up and now cannot get the dist cap back on at all.
 
Go with the Mopar Performance kit.........Sell the headache, I mean MSD box to someone else.
 
daredevil said:
msd compatible with revlimiters and shiftlites plug and play
Click to expand...

There's no difference electronically between the MSD billet distributors and the stock Mopar ones, unless you're talking about an MSD Ready To Run distributor. I would go with a factory type distributor, either the MP or FBO one. As the ignition setups I usually play around with are a bit less mainstream and a lot more complicated, I don't have much of an opinion as to which of these two to go with. But for a mostly stock car, you might as well have a mostly stock ignition.
 
dgc333 said:
The advance weights don't change. There is adjustable slot that limits the amount of advance. The springs and slot are under the pickup plate. I didn't have to take anything apart to tune mine. A pair of needle nose plier to R&R the springs through the access hole and the spacers fit through the hole too along with the allne wrench to tighten it down afterwards.
Click to expand...

There I've been pulling mine to tune it. Learned something tonight. I'm using MP distributor with FBO ignition kit. (box, coil, cap, rotor and resistor)
 
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