Things are coming together over here... I need to buy my ignition system. What do you recommend for a 70 455 bone stock? Street driven only, but I'd like it to be all it can be... Qusstions are: Plugs (I just bought stock R44TS) Wires Coil stock points or under the cap conversion Is a MSD 6 necessary or even worth it? Thanks, Frank Brooks
IMHO, you can't beat an MSD ignition. You can trigger it with the points distributor, and the points will last forever, because they are carrying less current. You can then run a .045 plug gap for a performance increase. Look around at the next car show you go to. I bet you'll see MSD under more hoods than not.
What do you think of a pertronix module and 40K coil? Can I increase my gap with that? My stock gap is only .030...
Some people have great luck with Pertronix, others hate them. The Pertronix won't give you any more spark energy than points, I don't care what coil you run. But the Pertronix will be maintenence free, if you don't have any trouble with it. I wouldn't increase your plug gap with the Pertronix
It will with a bigger plug gap. And when you upgrade, the ignition system will be ready. Actually, recurving your distributor so that your mechanical advance is all in at 2500 RPM will make a real seat of the pants difference.
I'm afraid that is French to me... what do you think of Dave's Small Body HEI? That might be an answer! Frank
I have Daves MSD magnetic trigger conversion distributor, which I use to trigger an MSD Digital6+ box. His HEI conversion works great also. If what I wrote is French to you :laugh: Do a search on this board on ignition, and distributor recurving. You'll be reading for hours. It's one of the most important things to do to your ignition system, ESPECIALLY on a stock motor. It will make a huge difference :TU:
Frank, It was highly recommended to me to go with the Crane XRI electronic conversion. I have heard several horrors about the Pertronix to give it a try. I just had my dist curved and put the XRI system in it and it made a noticable difference from the stock system for sure. I do have a cam in a 1970 compression motor though. It was a simple connection to do, and I am running the MSD Blaster II coil that can be painted black and placed where the stock coil was and looks like it was never touched as well. I know that conversion runs about $70, which is not bad at all. Mike
Frank, Larry among others pointed me towards Dave's Smallbody HEI's and I decided to go with the Mag trigger pick-up distributor and the MSD 6AL box (I liked the rev limiter feature) and the coil we talked about before. When Dave does your distributor you have a bunch of options, but in the end all lead to a like new or better than new rebuild and a custom curved dist that is well worth the money. I'm not sure you can do it any cheaper and I haven't heard of anything any better. You can always send him a Distributor core from another 455 to do for you and keep your stock unit in case you ever want to change back. If you choose the HEI option you don't have to install the MSD box. Or you can hide the MSD box if you don't like the look :beer
Can I gather from this great advice that a Dave's HEI conversion will eliminate the need for an external ignition box? And it would allow for the larger gap that is beneficial? And it will provide breakerless ignition and the reliability that comes from that? And it will provide the recurving that improves performance? I know that a high output coil is required... should the plugs be a higher heat range? Will 7mm wires be adequate? Should the gap be .045? Frank
I have Dave's HEI and all your questions are answered basically the same, YES. You will need to run 12 volts to a new coil. He will give you all the needed info. I do not have his contact info, but he is easy to deal with and probably the least expensive of all the "upgrades". Remember his are a drop in replacement. He has already done all the curve work based on info you give him. .045 might be a little big, but close. John
Yes, the HEI only requires a direct 12 volt power source, pretty simple. No box is required. If you search for Ignition threads you'll probably find some that larry got involved in, he had a specific plug and gap recommendation (mine are at .050) and that's what I used. I replaced all the parts and added the box at the same time so my total advance, advance curve, coil and wires all changed, it was a big improvment. BTW: The bodyshop called today and they scheduled a flatbed to bring my car home tomorrow afternoon. I should get your wheels shipped this weekend. I'll let you know when I ship them.
Frank---I have a Dave's Small Body MSD Trigger conversion system--still not installed (waiting on motor)...if you want to look it over (I have it here in Austin--sitting in a box) let me know. With the MSD Trigger set-up you will still be running an external MSD box. Also, I have the NAPA part number for an oil filled coil that Dave recommends(have the coil here also)..so DO NOT GO OUT AND BUY SOME "FANCY" COIL!!!!!---this NAPA coil is the same as the good, hot coils the others will sell you (except painted a bright color with decals all over it). Dave sells two systems 1)HEI conversion and 2)MSD Trigger(this does not use HEI parts---it's just a trigger wheel set up for the external MSD box) The internal structure of your distributor body determines where he mounts the HEI "guts"---it may be underneath the distributor main body(where distributor internal structure doesn't allow enough room) or it may be inside the dist body. The cool thing about his conversions is any part that could go out is readily available at NAPA---basically all these fancy, HD parts that others sell are also sold at NAPA, etc (they are usually just a different color---e.g. HD Dist caps and rotors) and Dave gives you all the NAPA part numbers in case you ever have to go buy a part. Dave will recurve your distributor as part of the rebuild process--he has you fill out an info sheet about your car (gears, cam, etc) that he can refer to or you might just ask him to use some recurve specs that are recommended on this board. His turnaround is extremely fast--get on the net, download the info sheet, box and ship to him with US POSTAL MONEY ORDER (Don't send ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT) and in a few days you get an email with a pic of your finished distributor. Pertronix seems to be a 50/50 shot at best, for every one that I hear says it works another guy has pulled it out after problems (Brad, the guy with the Silver Olds Cutlass SX convert at the car show we just had went through this recently--Pertronix kept dying on him---gave him Dave info and I think he is making the conversion. Why worry about it--never hear problems with Dave's setup so I would go with it. Patton
Frank---Where, what kind, etc of camera did you take that pic with?--I would like one that gets that kind of detail in the pics.
It's a Nikon 950, taken in my garage, with the built-in flash. It's a few years old now, and they are pretty cheap on eBay. Frank
