Please forgive me for this but if anyone has any info it would help. A little background first...My car has been in storage for almost 20 years. I pulled it out last spring and I have been dinking around with it as time has permitted. So I've forgotten some of my facts and figures. Here's what I remember from my rebuild in 84.....030 overbore, 10.5 forged pistons, a crane cam (lift .494 int @.500-.504 ext @.500 304 deg duration "doesn't sound right does it" 118 deg) KB chrome headers (Chrome/blue same thing) stock heads .030 mill on the deck surface, 120lb springs and a 3 angle cut and a Mallory dual point distributor. My first question is does anyone remember the crane cam that I have? It was the most radical hydraulic cam they had for the 455. Second, as I remember the engine really woke up when I put the dual point in. The guy that did final assembly at the engine shop I worked at said it was set up to run something like 36 degrees of total advance The distributor died and I'd rather got to something that's up to date, my question is.....will one of the under cap setups give me the same kind of performance as one of the new HEIR Hi performance distributors? and are the easy to set up? I'm pretty with nuts and bolts and bearings but ignition stuff is something I'm trying to learn. I'd really like to get it set up so I can come to some of the races and not get spanked to bad. Thankso No:
yes alot of guys do that, i use a unit built by crane cams and use a hi voltage accell coil and have my distribitor set for total advance of 36 in at 2000 rpm. some guys also add a msd box
Rick, I know you are doing this from memory, but I don't think you are getting the cam specs right. I have a KB118 cam in my 455. The advertised duration #'s are 284* intake, 304* exhaust, .490 lift, intake and exhaust, on a 118* LDA. The at .050 specs for intake, and exhaust are 228*, and 241* respectively. As far as your ignition goes, IMHO, you can't beat a good MSD system. If you look around, at car shows, that is what most people are running. We used to have a guy by the name of Dave Ray frequent this BB. His screen name was Ignitionman, and his specialty was rebuilding distributors. He would actually take a stock distributor, completely rebuild it soup to nuts, recurve it to your specs, add an adjustable vacuum advance, and either convert it over to an MSD magnetic pick up, or convert it to HEI operation by mounting the module on the outside distributor housing. I had him convert my stock points 455 distributor to the MSD magnetic pick up, and I run an MSD Digital 6+ box. The distributor conversion cost me 140.00. IMHO, you can't go wrong doing it this way. Take a look at his website, and you decide. www.davessmallbodyheis.com
Here's a picture of my completed distributor, that Dave sent me before he shipped it. He sends you a picture before he ships it back. (for your approval). The beauty of this distributor is that it plugs right in to any MSD box, and it is set up just the way I wanted.
Rick, if you need/want to upgrade your distributor and ignition system, look HARD at Dave Ray's distributor conversions and read THIS THREAD! I REALLY like the things he says, ESPECIALLY about the Mallory Unilite Conversion. That's what I currently use, in the stock distributor (actually it is a Re-built Stinger S-4 distrib. that I changed the guts over to Unilite) along with an MSD 6AL. It has always seemed to run perfect, but although Dave has nothing BAD to say about Unilite, he seems to believe that it should NOT be used to trigger the MSD Box. So he's got me thinking about getting his MSD-trigger conversion. For the price, sounds like you REALLY get your money's worth! Sounds like he can even upgrade your old Mallory dual-point distributor body!:TU: WARNING: If you do happen to speak to Dave, DO NOT mention Pertronics (PerSputter, as he affectionately calls it, and ESPECIALLY NOT V8Buick.com. Don't even ask! ou:
Hey guys, thanks for the responses, I've been looking through your suggestions and I finally feel like I have some direction that I can use to bring back that throttle response and mid to high range charge I remember. Larry, yeah I'm sure my memory isn't sharp enough to remember that all correctly, I'm pretty sure on the lifts but the rest is fuzzy to say the least, I'm wondering if anyone might have used that same cam back in the 80's that remembers the proper specs? Thanks a bunch for the ignition information, that's the part of my setup I'm really looking to upgrade next. You guys have saved me some serious time by eliminating some trial and error and probably a bunch of cash. This is way more fun than hooking a power programmer up to my powerstroke but takes a lot longer.:TU:
