Hi Hambers, i am building a French Flathead with dual 97 carbs, roudy cam (400jr is planned) and rightnow i got a ignition-decision to make. i want an electronic dist so i found two options to choose from - one is bubbatronics - two is MSD Flathead Ford Ready to Run Distributor for '49-'53 i like very much the selfmade bubbatronics but am not sure for spareparts and reliability. For the MSD, haven´t read really bad stuff about it. Which coils should be combined with either one? which has which (dis)advantages, any opinions? thanks Jan
Unless you "know" the Bubba...deal...just stick with the tried and true. Use ALL of the MSD parts. Mixing and matching away from "already prooven" parts is a bad crap-shoot at best. Mike
I assume he's talking about GMC Bubba from here on the board. The guy knows his stuff and I have had him set up a couple of crab cap distributors for me over the last couple of years. He will gladly tell you exactly what you need as far as coils and anything else to get you working correctly. He will also happily help you after he sells it to you as well. My only concern with going that route is originally the distributors had a kind of funky advance mechanism, but I'm sure he's got that figured out as well. MSD? I use their stuff on my Plymouth, and have never bought any thing from them that didn't work as advertised and very well. Their after sale service is a little less personal, but still some of the best from a mass marketer that you can get.
GMC Bubba isn't just some random guy, he does this for a living. I know MSD stuff is good and it will work well, but like hotroddon says it won't have the look you probably want and Bubba's will.
or do it yourself, Chev conversion or dual point mallory......... http://www.flatheadv8.org/hei.htm its not that hard
Yes, the MSD stuff works well. But no, it isn't really in line with the early style builds often found here on the HAMB. GMC Bubba does all sorts of ingition repair, rebuild, updates, modifications etc... I dont think (at all) that finding spare parts would be any issue. I dont think he uses any proprietary components. I believe he uses what he has determined to be the best components for a given application-using parts available to everyone. With that said, he has the abilty to modify distributers to allow use of more over the counter parts etc... The only issue with the early Ford advance is that they work backwards from what most of us are used to.They work with a vacuum 'brake'. I am SURE he has this under control. Or you could always just hook the vacuum line up in the stock location and let it work as designed if using a stock type distributer. Yup, points work great, MSD works great, Pertronix works great, Mallory Unilite's work great etc... Just figure out what you want and make sure you use the components designed to work with it. IE Mallory unilite with a Mallory Electronic ignition coil, MSD with a MSD Blaster type coil, good points with a good HP coil etc... Honestly, I would call/pm GMC Bubba and ask his opinion. He seems to be a very straight up guy who will tell you the truth rather than just what you want to hear.
Had Bubba do one for my Y-Block. Made the old truck feel young again! A dizzy from Bubba is money well spent.
As many have said(and probably more) Bubba is the one to go to.You'll be talking to him not a parts counter,plus he's done the R&D and is always striving for better.NES_PA?
hi everyone, great, thanks for your answers! you helped me alot the hint with the look was very helpful too as i wanna go with a 40´s traditional style greetings Jan
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