What distributor are you using?

[Nordic]

Anyone using stock stlye with points? GM HEI? Mallory Unilite? MSD?
Procomp? If clearance isn't the deciding factor which one would you choose?

[meter swinger]

My 59 has a stock dizzy on the 327. Never had any issues with the points, but I do plan on going HEI in the future. Space is the major hold up right now.
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[NEWFISHER]

Have used stock with points, switched to mini HEI from stoveboltengines.com and was a great improvement. Now had a stocker, switched to GM HEI with remote coil and switched to MSD Billit HEI with coil on cap when I swapped engines. Stock is great for traditional OE look and driving like they did on yesterdays highways, changing oil every 500-100 miles etc. HEI is great for a driver.

[OrrieG]

350 sbc w GM HEI. Stay away from the ebay aftermarket China units, they are garbage.

[S10Fan]

Originally Posted by OrrieG

350 sbc w GM HEI. Stay away from the ebay aftermarket China units, they are garbage.

I've had a couple of the China HEI's, they were running up to 58-60 degrees advance @ 3000 RPM. Not real good for the motor. Swapped out the springs and weights, they were OK after that.

[Speedbumpauto]

I like the stock units with electronic conversions. Of those, I use nothing but Pertronix and have great success. I have the traditional look with updated technology and the weight/spring kit is cheap to recurve the advance for cam and carburetion+ vac advance for cruise. 50 degrees at cruise= gas mileage, if that matters on a toy.

[IndyBowtie]

Running stock dizzy on the 283, runs good but switching to Pertronix in Feb
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[GMtrucknut!!]

I have oem HEI and its never failed me in both trucks !

[mr48chev]

I've got an oem hei for the 292 but ran the 250 with points for around 100K.

The old stock points distributors are pretty reliable if they are in good shape and they are easy to diagnose and repair if they act up. Problem is that a lot of them we get our hands on may be pretty well worn out by now and need complete rebuilds.

The hei I have for the 292 came out of a low mileage engine in the late 80's when I swapped engines in a local farmer's truck for him and he wanted to retain the points style distributor out of his old engine. It's been out in my shed for that long and may need a rebuild it's self.

A lot of the aftermarket stuff works great but one of my concerns when I build a hot rod or truck is that I want the parts that commonly fail on a road trip to be ones that I can find parts for or diagnose and repair easily.

If you loose an engine, transmission or rear end you are going to get towed in anyhow and probably have to arrange to get the vehicle home but fuel, ignition, charging and starting systems should have parts that you can readily repair or replace and go again with maybe a few hours delay at the most. Some of the aftermarket electronic conversions have a great and faithful following but if you are in the middle of nowhere USA and one fails on a trip to an event can you get a replacement in a reasonable time or can you pull the conversion kit out an dig a set of points and a condenser out of your tool box and go again in a short while.

In 1988 when I was taking the kids back to their mom who was in Texas at the time I stopped at what is called a rest area in Wyoming about 15 miles west of Little America
And a young couple with a baby and the gals best friend were stalled in a 60 something Dodge pickup that belonged to his dad. Checking it over I figured out that the points were burned and borrowed an emery board from the girl sidekick and buffed up the points and put them back in and set them. The truck fired right up after we jumped it off my 51 Mercury and we followed them into Little America to make sure they made it. The whole diagnose and fix and get them going process took 15 minutes. One reason I can't knock a guy who wants to stay with points.

[Wazup]

Running a Accel Stock replacement that the Dist and bushings and all the guts are new, well its all new comes with the coil in the cap as well .... 350/350

[mark '87 930]

I run stock distributor with Crane Cams XRI (like pertronix). I like it, but wouldn't know the difference. Drove the truck 7000km's this summer.(what is that, like 4000 miles or something).

[_Ogre]

pertronix is cheap and will get rid of the points
we've run a set in my son's elcamino for 12 years with no problems

i had a chevy II with 194 I6 in it, we pulled a newer 250 hei distributor form a car and plopped it in
easy peasy

[xaircav]

Originally Posted by Speedbumpauto

I like the stock units with electronic conversions. Of those, I use nothing but Pertronix and have great success. I have the traditional look with updated technology and the weight/spring kit is cheap to recurve the advance for cam and carburetion+ vac advance for cruise. 50 degrees at cruise= gas mileage, if that matters on a toy.

Agree, I did this too and it works and looks great. Use the Pertronix coil and you can delete the ballast resistor.

[Speedbumpauto]

YEP!, clean and functional. Wish the rest of my build was that straight forward.