[DeTomaso] MSD distributors - WTF?
JDeRyke at aol.com
JDeRyke at aol.com
Mon Jun 27 14:36:53 EDT 2011
First, there are two different engine screens: the early one was all-screen
while the later one had a sheet metal cover attached to the middle of the
screen, and the sheet metal was bubbled up for more clearance with all stock
stuff. THe sheet metal can be dimpled for more local clearance.
Second, MSDs use Ford Motorsport pickups and reluctors so essentially what
you're getting for your extra bucks is a billet aluminum distributor body
and possibly different advance springs for a better advance curve.
Next, some Windsor distributors are made 1/2" shorter and will work just
fine in a 351-C if you change gears to a real 351-C gear- double pinned. And
there's nothing wrong with running an angled attach wire or two for
clearance.
FWIW, I slid the engine/ZF backwards 3/4" by reversing the upper
motormounts left-to-right and bending a shallow Z in the rearmost end of each
sheetmetal ZF mount. Extra 3/4" thick spacers are needed if you do this. I also
sectioned 7/8" out of my stock motormounts and redrilled the ZF mounts. This
lowered the entire powertrain by 7/8" so now I can run a big cap Ford
electronic distributor with 1/2" of firewall clearance.
The max limitations to shifting the powertrain this way is oil pan
clearance to the under-engine crossmember and harmonic balancer clearance to the big
rad hoses underneath. No problem with the slight angle this imparts to the
halfshafts- which already have a slight angle as-stock; successful big block
conversions shift the powertrain back 4 inches! All this was covered in
detail in various POCA newsletters over the last 5 yrs. The current
newsletter covers recurving a Ford distributor and adjusting the vacuum advance as
well. Good luck- J DeRyke
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