Looking to wake up my 350 crate engine (Basic Universal 5.7 SBC) with a new Distributor, anyone have suggestions on performance? ...math says I should be around 315HP with Edelbrock Intake and Performance Cam not including the new headers and exhaust we put in this past summer. Rebuilt the Quadrajet and it's working great, so not looking to invest in EFI. Distributor is 20 years old to the best of my knowledge which pre-dates my ownership. Please fire away, appreciate your time and suggestions!!!

 

I have a Pertronix Flamethrower dist

 

distributors don't really change power output until you are way up in the rpm range. unless you are going through the traps at the end of the quarter mile at 7000 rpm, you will not notice any change in power-provided what you have now is set up correctly. get it timed right. get the curve right. vac and centrif. then decide if you want to spend money...

 

You can use a stock distributer and use a points eliminator kit that works great. Waking up an engine is all about air flow, timing and compression. If you want to wake up your motor advance your timing to 36 degrees all in minus the vacuum advance per Lars paper. That alone will wake up a motor. Then if you have a fat wallet get some really good flowing heads appropriate for a cam range and then buy a cam for it

 

Try to avoid distributors from China. I went with Davis DUI distributor. Not cheap but great quality. You can request an advance curve.

 

Use any distributor you are comfortable with tuning and setting up. Avoid the cheap Chinese crap. Any distributor you buy will need to be set up correctly, although the D.U.I. stuff is built-to-order with your desired curve in it. In a street-driven vehicle, any ignition system will perform the same as any other once correctly set up. There is no gain changing from one to another as long as you set up the advance curve correctly.

See my comments here:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...t-and-ign.html


Lars

 

I would second the suggestion of going with the guys at D.U.I. as they can set you up with a true "ready to go" distributor.

 

i would second asking Lars for his timing papers. v8fastcars@msn.com.

 

I have one of those "cheap chinese crap" tach drive 65,000k hei units I bought before I knew they were so frowned upon... I have replaced the springs for better advance performance and had to replace the HEI modules a couple times over the last 10 years but other than that its been fine with no play issues.. Being a stock HEI replacement type distributor I wouldnt go as far as to consider it a true performance upgrade other than it replaced a very worn 74 l48 points distributor. Also being that I dont take my car over 5500rpm I dont feel I can justify anything more complex in my case. I have it setup so the advance I want comes in early like I want and it does this well.
I had the distributor out last summer while swapping in a roller cam and everything still looks and moves like new so maybe I got a good one or maybe they just arent really that bad. Especially if you consider so many of the more expensive ones are othen the same chinese made pieces rebranded. If it matters even the official AC Delco units are made in Taiwan these days. Many here would argue a 20 year old unit you have is likely better build quality than youll replace it with.

For a 315hp 350 I wouldnt expect miracles to come from a distributor swap. Other than a better advance curve which you can easily implement on you stock distributor you wont see any appreciable power gains going from an oem distributor to something else. If your going to be reving this car to high rpms then something like an MSD box setup has more tangible benefit other than reducing the weight in your wallet. I would buy a performance recurve kit that comes with the plates and springs along with a quality set of wires and go that route if it were me. Of course some speed shops, spark plug manufacturers and the like and thier marketing teams everywhere will tell you otherwise as this has been easy picking for them for decades.
Maybe pulling the cap and rotor and see what type of setup you have now might help? I know folks here like Lars can likely point you in the right direction a bit better based on knowing what you already have? How many miles on this crate motor? If it really is only 20 years old its already an HEI unit and newer than what many here are running.

 

My experience with what I believe is an import distributor, has been nearly identical to yours. Mine came from an ebay vendor called KMJ Performance.

 

Another vote for D.U.I. I've had mine over 10 years and it's going great. Custom curved, just talk to them over the phone. Plug and play with your timing light.

 

Go to a scrap yard and pull a HEI and rebuild it. Mine is now 46 years old and ~100K miles. Well built units that have stood the test of time, imo.

 

What if he needs the tach drive?

 

Get the timing curve done right. Vacuum, initial and total. That alone could be worth 30HP, a cooler running engine and 3-4 MPG.
It doesn't matter what unit you use for a street car, as long as the timing curve is set up WELL, and almost all of them need tuned to get there.
Learn how to tune the distrib, or pay someone else to do it.
It's worth that much!

 

Does he have a mech'l tach??

 

My suggestion: a properly set up t.i. distributor (or a standard distributor converted to t.i.) triggering a 4 pin gm h.e.i. module.

 

As did mine coincidently.

 

I think the point is being missed here, The OP implied they already have a much newer crate motor distributor but is under the impression that their are measurable gains to be had if he or she replaces it on their mild 350 build because its at least 20 years old.... In truth nothing has changed in the last 20 years that would make a new replacement distributor better. If anything the quality of these reproductions has likely gone south in most cases since then.

As mentioned the things that could make a noticeable difference are the wear and its impact functionality of the distributor (how many miles on this engine and distributor), the weights and springs as well as how much advance your setup to get. all this stuff really needs to be checked and setup on the engine regardless of what distributor you bolt on. The other improvements and advancements from higher end distributor setups just wont make any appreciable difference in this build at least not enough to be justified from a purely logical standpoint. Just my 2 cents anyway.

 

In order to fix some thing, we need to know what is broken. Maybe the OP can tell us what he has now, and why it needs help? Maybe a recurve is all it needs?

 

I need to see what I've got in there...I'm getting it out of storage this week and was just thinking it may be a good idea to dial in the performance. I'll take some photos and post them! Thank you all.