My son and I are in the process of building a 302 to go in our '70 Mav. for the street. Engine is as follows: 302 block, crank, & rods from '87 Bronco (non roller) Edelbrock RPM flat tappet cam, RPM heads, RPM intake and Performer carb. C-4, 3000 stall converter 3.55 gear Now the questions: What type of ignition should we buy? I have heard that a stock Duraspark setup from around '83 works pretty well. I checked with NAPA and they have a listing for an '83 truck dist. with large cap, vacuum advance and cast gear. Will this work, and if so, should I use the stock Duraspark (blue tab) module and coil, or opt for something like the Crane Hi-6 module and LX-92 coil? The Crane setup is about $200 more than stock parts, is it worth it for what we are building? What type of wires should we consider? We are running headers. Also, which is the proper dist. gear to run with a flat tappet cam? I see that the roller cams require a steel gear, and I assume the cast gear goes with a flat tappet cam. Is this correct? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks, Scott
I have heard nothing but good things about the MSD boxes. One of my friends has a '65 F100 with a 302. He is running a Duraspark II Distributor from a '82 F150 and a MSD ignition box and it runs great. I am running the full Duraspark II ignition on my '74 Grabber with a 250 I6. I went to Auto Zone and bought a coil for a 1989 F350 with a fuel injected 460. This is a TFI coil and works great. I have no complaints about the Duraspark II ignition, it's works 100% better then points, but I do plan on upgradeing to a MSD box sooner or later. There is also the Pertronix. Several guys on here are running that and they seem to like it. I thought about running it but I have heard a few complaints about it and I decided I would rather have a system I could get parts for easily at the local auto parts store should something fail. If your on a budget then the Duraspark II ignition is the way to go IMO.
http://users3.ev1.net/~bmarr/duraspark_ignition_upgrade.htm I'M ALSO RUNNING A DURASPARK THIS IS A GREAT ARTICLE ON IT AND YOUR OK WITH THE DIST GEAR IF YOU GO WITH TFI COIL RECOMMENDED MAKE SURE YOU GET THE RIGHT COIL WIRE FEMALE ON BOTH ENDS
well i have the complete MSD ignition system MSD 6A Box MSD Pro Billet Distributor MSD Blaster SS Coil Msd 8.8 Wires before i put all this in...my mav ran 15.2 in the quarter... after i put the MSD ignition in it....and no other changes the same car ran 14.5 all i can say...thats a PROVEN increase.. and i will always use MSD from now on the whole setup can be had at Summit racing for about 600... i got mine for 800 since i didnt want to wait the 1 week.... it took me about 6 hours to put it in.....i am no electronic guy by any means...and i figured it out
I personally havent used crane but i have used mallory and msd. for simplicity sake the mallory unilite is the way to go because it uses no boxes just the distributor and three wire hookup.
I have Duraspark and it runs great, however if I had it to do over, I'd go with Pertronix or the new HEI ignition for Fords. They are a one-wire hook-up and are so much simpler. Replacment parts are easy to get as well. Yeah, MSD boxes are cool too...
Thanks to all for the advice. Now I have run into a very strange complication. I have the distributor from the donor engine, an '87 EFI from a Bronco. The dist is a 6 wire TFI (EEC), and the shaft (below the gear) is about 5/8" longer than a normal 302 distributor. I bought a reman unit from NAPA to fit an '84 with the older Duraspark setup, but the dist. shaft barely engages the oil pump shaft. I don't dare run it. After more research at NAPA, I found that any dist. with the longer shaft is TFI only. I know that Ford built a 3 wire TFI module (for carbureted engines), and I'm wondering if I could get a 3 wire module to fit my old TFI distributor and run the TFI setup instead the Duraspark. Does anyone know if these longer-shaft distributors are available aftermarket (MSD, Mallory, Pertronix, etc.) ? I could just go that way as well. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks, Scott
The Duraspark distributor shaft is shorter below the gear than the TFI dizzy shaft but engages that oil pump shaft fine. From what I understand Ford did that to make assembly easier when dropping in the distributor so it will engage the oil pump shaft before the gears engage. Avoids the cam gear/oil pump shaft hex alignment problem when trying to line the rotor up in the proper location.
Oh yeah, the Duraspark distributor works great with MSD Ignitions. The magnetic pickup in the duraspark is the same pickup used in the MSD Distributors.
http://www.jegs.com//cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=324488&prmenbr=361 http://www.jegs.com//cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=33747&prmenbr=361 They make 2 lengths oil pump rods for 302 and 5.0ls The intake makes a difference EFI/or Carb Also the gears are different if it is a Hyd Roller cam or reg Hyd Flat tappet. The dizzys are differnt height as well the EFI is taller by a half inch approx..... Hope that helps..... If you are using the carb you need the standard 302 oil pump rod not the 5.0L.....
