It arrived today! I won't say much about it at this point but there may be a new duraspark based unit available soon. As far as I know, I have the only one. Gonna make sure it fits as soon as I can - Hopefully this weekend - and try to have the whole ignition installed in time for Columbus!









Lawrenceville, GA

it looks nice would go great with my motor since alot of the parts on my engine are painted new ford blue

FORD IS LIFE OIL N GAS IS MY BLOOD

That would be just the thing for my Y blocks. I'm getting too old to change points.

Kenneth

Fredricksburg, Texas

Charlie, I assume that you mean mass production when you talk about availability? I would like to try one myself....

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Charlie - That package looks familiar - what sort of mechanical advance is in there?......the Ford "choose between two slots" or something more adjustable?

The "Mustang" HEI cap may get pretty close to the right rear manifold runner on a Blue Thunder manifold.

There are smaller diameter caps with the male studs - are there any that fit the Ford distributor?

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

Once I've verified the fit, and reported back, I'm sure it will go into production. I think it will be priced competitively, too.







I don't know how the advance is set up. I haven't yet taken a peek inside. The body is motorcraft so it could very well be a stock type mechanism. The distributor is curved based on engine specs and usage. It's not exactly a universal distributor because of that.

I put Duraspark cap on my distributor while it was in the engine. It is very close to the blue thunder manifold but there is clearance. I don't know if there is another cap that will work. If the cap did hit the manifold, it will require only a small amount of material to be removed.



Here are some pics:









Lawrenceville, GA

Charlie - Are you going to use a Ford type "blue grommet" controller - or an MSD red box with this distributor?

I had to replace the grey cap on shown mine with a different one due to constant erosion of the aluminum "HEI" studs by the high voltage connectors. The wire kit I used cam from Taylor and the connectors seem to clamp tighly in place but.....? The new part came from Summit (I think) and is red with brass studs - the brass doesn't erode away like before.  

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

Though car is running great, I decided to pull the distributor cap yesterday and inspect the points I installed 20,000 miles ago (previous set showed some peaking, indicating the condenser included with THAT set was not the proper value). Aside from some VERY minor graying/frosting, they looked exactly like they did when I installed them. No detectable peaking/pitting, and the gap was the same (I keep the cam well greased). Love that positive ground!

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

The controller, coil, plug wires, and distributor all come from the same place. The controller is not a stock Ford controller but it appears to have the same housing. The coil is a square shaped unit rather than a canister like stock. It should be much improved over the stock duraspark setup and far better than the Y's stock setup.



I might try an MSD box later. I've been reading about idi and cdi ignitions and I'm really not sure if the MSD will be much better than what I have. The inductive ignition has a single long duration spark while the capacitive ignition has several short duration sparks. The biggest limit to stock inductive systems is that they are reliable only to about 5000rpm. This unit I have, with the upgraded circuitry, is good well beyond the RPM my engine will see, and with a minor change, beyond what many race Y's will see. The only thing I haven't found out yet is how the single long duration spark compares in reality to the multiple short duration sparks. I do want a rev limiter so that's a definite plus to the MSD box.


Lawrenceville, GA

I finally got it all installed this weekend! I said the controller looks like a Duraspark controller. It actually looks like a Mopar controller. I've seen more Mopar ecu's than Duraspark and must have associated the two for some reason.





















Lawrenceville, GA