So I finished my engine rebuild this winter and when I got everything back together, I had a weird timing issue. The engine ran great but the timing "reading" was 50 degrees and any attempt to de-tune had the car die below a "reading" of 35 degrees. I was baffled as were the local wrenches in the club, I finally took it to a professional mech, he went ovr all of my work and he was stumped as well. We finally swapped out dist and the problem went away. After eliminating all other options (degree of cam off, dist off a tooth, mis-wired, confused timing lights, etc etc) the only explanation was the dist was sending some premature but weak signal down the spark wires and causing a mis-reading. Car ran great but timing was just reading off. As the mech said if he had not put a timing light on the car, just from hearing / driving the car, he never would have guessed anything was wrong.

So we get a new dist, same model, brand new (other one was 5 years old) and drop it in, same rotor and body alignment and car starts up, timing reading is now around 15 degrees, we make some adjustments and everything was fine. So we confirmed something weird about the old dist.

Well, about 1 week later, car dies on me and won't start. Once again eliminate the obvious (dead battery, loose wires, 12V to dist, fuel). I drop an old carquest dist in and once again she starts right up and timing is good. I am sending it back to Jegs and hoping for a replacement this week.

Both times the dist was the following model:
http://www.jegs.com/i/MSD+Ignition/121/8365/10002/-1

I know MSD had problems with their ignition boxes but any evidence of quality issues with the all-in-one HEI's?

Any other thoughts? Is this common with MSD?
Thanks
Shane

 

Check YOUR connections to-at dist cap (power & tach) ... make sure they canNot arc across each other. Check your harmonic damper for slipping outer ring (transient timing mark).

 

Harmonic Damper was one of the very first thigns I eliminated but I will double check connections and for sparking.
Thanks

 

I had problems with my MSD pro billet, I eventually replaced it with a Accell Billet distributor and Its been fine ever since.

 

What kind of problems did you have?
I thought about just straight returning and it and trying another brand but considering I threw out the box, etc already I was pretty happy jegs would just replace it.