Replacing the Stinger S-4 pickup with MSD 8466-1

When replacing the Stinger S-4 pickup with the MSD 8466-1 pickup, do you also replace the distributor breaker plate and reluctor as well?

I have a stock distributor that's been converted to Stinger S-4, with the Hays/Stinger distributor breaker plate. I went to replace the now-dead Stinger pickup with the MSD unit, but I believe I need a different breaker plate to mount it correctly? An old post from Dave Ray (IgnitionMan) mentions a "Ford concentric plate with the MSD pickup."

Looking at a picture of this conversion from many years ago (thanks to Larry70GS) does show a different breaker plate than the Hayes, as well as a different reluctor.

 

So according to Charlie Evans' post, I can just purchase any Chrysler pickup within the date range mentioned, remove it from any backing plate, and install it into my Stinger-converted Delco-Remy distributor.

Thank you, Larry, for reposting Charlie Evans post.

 

I got mine for a 76 dodge with lean burn. Was cheap.

 

According to IgnitionMan (Dave Ray): "MOPAR, Chrysler pickup, not great. There are right and left rotation knees. Small block, 360 is right; big block, 383, 400, 440 are left turning. Set gap with PLASTIC or BRASS feeler, NOT STEEL. Gap: .015."

I'm not sure how to interpret his comment about "right and left rotation knees." Is right rotation another way of saying "clockwise", left rotation would be "counter clockwise?" So our original GS Delco Remy distributors would use the clockwise/right rotation that the small block MOPAR 360 used?

I'm not sure how "lean burn" factors into all of this?!

 

The lean burn one (in my experience) is a little shorter than the without lean burn pickup. The shorter pickup (with lean burn) has less issues with interference with the rotor screws.

I have used the '76 318 one for about 10 years. Hasn't had an issue.

 

I purchased a Standard Motor Products LX-109 Distributor Pickup, for a 1978 Mopar small block application, clock-wise rotation, with lean burn. Thank you John!

I then removed it from the backing plate to which it's attached and installed it into my Stinger-converted Delco-Remy distributor. Adjusting the air gap, I noticed that there was not sufficient adjustment. In fact, the pole piece contacted the reluctor in the furthest-out position!

I believe this part was a defect, as the pole piece didn't stick out from the coil at a 90 degree angle as the original Stinger. Instead, the coil was cocked slightly on the permanent magnet assembly. So with nothing to loose I proceeded as follows.

On these Mopar-style pickups, a stud on the pickup coil secures it to the permanent magnet assembly. Many, including the original Stinger pickup, melt this stud to secure it in place. But, as luck would have it, this new SMP pickup used a clip on this stud. So I carefully ground off the melted stud from the original Stinger pickup, removed the malfunctioning original coil, replaced it with the new, and secured it via the clip.

Here's a picture showing this new pickup and the white stud to which I'm referring.


Here's the disassembly that I was describing above showing the new coil partially installed.


That did the trick, as I was able to adjust the air gap to these values:

Without vacuum advance applied to the backing plate: .011, .009, .007, .005, .005, .005, .008, .011
With vacuum advance applied: .012, .009, .011, .011, .011, .008, .006, .005

Bench testing showed voltage in the acceptable 500mV-1600mV range.

By the way, on this SMP pickup the black wire is negative, orange is positive. This seems to be the Mopar convention.

Oddly, I initially had these pickup wires reversed, and the car started immediately but idled with the timing "wandering" , just as Larry warned.

The car has not started since correcting this, so there remains some intermittent problem.

It could simply be that my air gaps remain too large. I've ordered a .002 brass feeler gauge in the spirit of correcting the obvious. But I'm not too hopeful that will solve this problem. Variations on the reluctor prohibit this, as the best that I can do is reduce the gap numbers above by .003, which will leave most greater than .002.

 

WARNING: The distributor pickup described above did NOT work, as it resulted in the car stumbling on acceleration and fouling of the plugs. Perhaps I damaged the coil when taking the SMP LX-109 apart to use on the original Stinger/Hayes reluctor.

I also now realize that my trouble-shooting of the distributor was flawed, as I had trouble measuring the voltage due to the rather small connectors used. I simply didn't make reliable connections between the positive and negative terminals within the connector, so I incorrectly concluded that the original pickup was bad. Then I installed a new pickup that I either damaged or was bad out of the box.