Changing Dist.

My 74 Maverick has a 200 in it. I have a 250 from a 77 comet. The comet has electronic dist. will it go in the 200. If it will what else do I need to change. Dean

 

Yup ... converting older points cars to a Duraspark II setup is both a common and very worthwhile thing to do ... I have done it as well as many others ... you can do a search to find out more ...

 

So I just pull the whole dist. and put it in the 200.

 

You'll need to grab the ignition box and wiring harness off the donor car and install those with the distributor.

Another option is to keep the distributor you have and install a Petronix setup in the distributor. That replaces the points and condensor, has two wires, and can be done in an hour.

 

I have the pentronix system in the 200 now. I thought the whole dist. swap would even be better??

 

You will get opinions both ways on this. Personally, and this pure opinion, if you are running a stock setup, I don't believe you will see any advantage of the Duraspark over the Petronix and vice-versa. If you already have a Petronix setup, I don't think you will gain anything by going to the Duraspark. I don't know how you are building your Mav, but one advantage to the Petronix is that you can keep a stock appearing distributor. I have a Petronix in '77 with a 250 six banger and I have a Petronix in my '73 Grabber with a 302.

I am about to swap engines in '73 (doubling the horsepower) and I will end up with a MSD system in the car.

 

If there is not much difference between the two I will leave it as is. My wife drives this car all most on a daily basis. She has been getting bad gas mileage and I thought I would do a tune up and retime.Was just thinking about changing it at the same time. Dean

 

While you are changing plugs, installing new rotor and cap, checking wires, and checking timing, check out the carb as well. You can get an idea if the carb is dumping too much gas by looking at the plugs. There have been a couple of very good threads on here about inspecting your plugs.

 

Thanks I will do that. I just rebuilt the carb. about six months ago it will be a good time to recheck plugs. Dean

 

If you want I can convert it to Mallory Unilite to keep its original look. Here is a photo of a Distributor I used to make from scratch for the old Ferrari's. Not that you would want a new distributor, but I could mill the inside for the mallory unilite ignition.

 

Stock, the Duraspark setup won't be any better then the Pertronix. If you want to see an improvement, get an ignition module for a 1978 Camaro with a 350 and a TFI coil for a 1989 F350 with a 460. Run a wire straight from the battery through a relay to the module and coil. Activate the relay off of any switched circuit. Gap the plugs at .047. It takes alot more time to rig it all up, but it will give a much hotter spark then a Pertronix and a noticeable improvement in power and gas mileage.