I have a Mallory distributor modified for my modified banger 4cy ford flathead engine. The distributor began life as a YC Dual Life 8 cylinder distributor, CCW rotation, actual model number unknown. The Dual Life distributor used a 4 lobe cam to operate (2) sets of points. Each set of points would fire 4 of the 8 cylinders. The distributor was modified by removing one set of points and disabling every other terminal in the distributor cap. Thus it is now a functioning 4 cylinder distributor. See photos. I would like to update this distributor to a Pertronix module. The customer service at Pertronix does not have a kit for the YC distributor and/or does not have a 4 cylinder magnetic ring to fit this 4 lobe cam. Several questions: 1) What is an actual Mallory model number that would fit this 8 cylinder, 4 lobed cam, "Dual Life", CCW rotating distributor? This information may be useful for further investigating. 2) Has anyone done this conversion before? What is involved and/or who would be a good person to talk to? 3) I am also looking to find a tower style cap and rotor for this distributor. Echlin MA5 cap and Echlin MA7 rotor. Caps are now no longer available from NAPA. Sources would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help. Peace, Phred
I thought that the Pertronix pickup used the existing cam lobes as a trigger, have I been misinformed? I'm really interested in this conversion since I have a Mallory for my Pontiac motor that I'm wanting to convert to electronic on the theory that I can have the old school look without all of the fussing with the points. Getting to the points in my application is a pain. As far as the cap and rotor go I made an adapter and fitted a Mopar cap and rotor on mine. The adapter is made out of a piece of plastic sewer pipe coupling that I carved on the lathe, it was surprisingly easy with the only tough part being getting the spring clips shaped correctly without breaking them. With the adapter I didn't have to do any modifications to the distributer in case I run across an original cap. By the way Ford clips from the junkyard work pretty well after you break the original clips.
I have an 8cy Mallory ZC dual point distributor with a pertronix igniter conversation that works well. The only difference between a YC & ZC that I’m aware of it the ZC has vacuum & mechanical advance & the YC is mechanical only. I don’t think the igniter module cares on the rotation to trigger. Maybe you could have the point cam machined to have 4 lobes? Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Still looking for the "tower" style (not the flat top) cap and rotor for my Mallory YC 8 cylinder Distributor. There is a NAPA/Echlin number MA 5 and MA 7 for the cap and rotor respectively, but they seem to be terminally unavailable from NAPA. Any help would be appreciated. Peace, Phred
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