anyone have experience with MSD distributors?

I'm thinking of pulling my stock distributor in my buick nailhead and going electronic? dont know if I should
use Perftronics or MSD

Hey TV
Wish we were all in Detroit tonight.
I think the answer here is in your wallet.
Both brands are very reliable.
The Petronix you could buy 2 of the converters for your old dist. and still be money ahead.
Does this msd require an external box?
Does the Buford have room for the larger msd/hei style cap? Ibelieve it does do away with the external coil.

If it were mine...rebuild the old dist, keep an extra cap. rotor, point and condensor in the
trunk and run a 40000 volt coil and keep the old one for a spare.

Hope this helps
Kbilly

kbilly wrote:

Hey TV
Wish we were all in Detroit tonight.
I think the answer here is in your wallet.
Both brands are very reliable.
The Petronix you could buy 2 of the converters for your old dist. and still be money ahead.
Does this msd require an external box?
Does the Buford have room for the larger msd/hei style cap? Ibelieve it does do away with the external coil.

If it were mine...rebuild the old dist, keep an extra cap. rotor, point and condensor in the
trunk and run a 40000 volt coil and keep the old one for a spare.

Hope this helps
Kbilly

well your last comment confirms what my mechanic told me. he said the MSD kit would be just fine. Although I dont drive this car much more than 2x a month to the store. I've replaced the points once in the last 5yrs. These nailheads are nice other than the F'n smoke from that nutty breather tube that runs down by the bottom of the firewall and tranny... a 40 mile trip on the freeway leaves us smelling like oil and fuel with a film on the windows. may as well fly a biplane for crop dusting

I'm pretty sure I don't have a clue what I'm talking about here but I was just looking at the Petronix conversion unit for a project car I've been thinking about. I liked the idea of keeping the stock look of the original distributer with the guts of an electronic. I guess I'm just not a kustom kind o dude.

link

vic wrote:

I'm pretty sure I don't have a clue what I'm talking about here but I was just looking at the Petronix conversion unit for a project car I've been thinking about. I liked the idea of keeping the stock look of the original distributer with the guts of an electronic. I guess I'm just not a kustom kind o dude.

link

I already have an Edlebrock 4barrel carb on it with a moon racing oversized air filter so having
the aftermarket distributor that sits way back on the firewall isnt too big a deal. After you
get stuck on the side of the damn freeway at 1am enough times after a gig and your wife
shows up for you in complete silence with an "I told you the F'K so " look, this distributor
looks good. I know I've been able to count on my new holley electric fuel pump instead of the
stupid stocker.

For the vent tube, slide a piece of hose over he end of it and route it to one side or the other.
My litle 283 has the same type vent and it worked for me.

kbilly wrote:

For the vent tube, slide a piece of hose over he end of it and route it to one side or the other.
My litle 283 has the same type vent and it worked for me.

it didnt melt? did you use silicon tubing?

ok, just ckd your previous post to make sure we were talking about the same thing.Looks like we are. I added a piece of molded radiator hose to mine that actually followed more or less the path it needed to reach the side of the car. [try to stay away from hot exhaust parts though] My friends and I try to pick up obsolete inventory from local parts stores before they send it back or trash it so we always have some misc. parts around.

another alt is to create a closed PCV system for the old Buick. Its easy, pm me if you want to know more .