I was wanting to know if anyone has done this conversion before. I know that the 351 C shared distributors with 351 and 400 M's, 429's, and 460's. I was wondering if you could just order a reman one from the parts store for a vehicle that has a good advance curve from factory. Problem is most of the vehicles I know of that had a DS II from factory are smoggers. Anyone know of a good donor vehicle to pull one or order one for and has anyone done this swap and have advice.
The C & W dizzys are the same except for the cam gear, just change em. Should be some decent junkyard choices.
I have found the advance on the smogger big block distributors are not too bad as I have one on a 390 and a 460 (both from junkyard) and no excessive pinging,now on the small blocks its a different story as I got one for a 302 and a 351-w (both reman) and they ping excessively so they need to be recurved. There is someone who will custom build one for your specific motor but I need to find the info. www.reincarnation-automotive.com
The duraspark II is actually a decent unit. In my opinion way better than the HEI. Here is some good reading about the distributor http://www.carbdford.com/viewtopic.php?t=5543 BUT the one thing that I have found, is that parts store modules are not OEM quality. I always save the modules off of cars I part out, it just makes sense, I had a friend who went through several parts store modules, I gave him an oem one and he has not had a lick of trouble since.
Almost anything is better than an HEI You are also right about the quality of most of the cheapy parts store modules.
I disassembled a points distributor and swapped the breaker plate for the duraspark plate. Had to grind a bigger slot for the wiring. Although, if you take it down that far it would be just as easy to recurve the later distributor.
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