The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Distributor for 235

I am trying to get a 235 engine (casting #3769716) I bought from a n engine shop in MN that has turned out to be Chinese parts and a spray can. I want to use a stock looking Delco distributor with a pertronics upgrade. Which distributor # would have GM put on this block? Where is the best source for this distributor?

Hi Ron...first of all please let us try to disabuse you of wanting a Pertronix equipped distributor. It may not be an upgrade as much as a source of accelerating hatred. The casting number for your engine sounds like a later (1958 and up) model 235. Others may have ideas. Any of the 235 distributors from that time period will work or there are HEI alternatives. I have one of the offshore distributors made for the 230/250/292 I modified and showed how to modify here on the forum. It has been working since 1997 without trouble. It doesn't look like original but one of the few "original looking" HEI distributors was Tom Langdon's Mini-HEI and he hasn't been making them for a while now. Please avoid Pertronix though. As Jerry (HotRodLincoln) says there are two types of those: the ones that have failed and the ones that are fixing to fail.

Thanks...I am trying to keep the "stock" look. What would you recommend to meet my goal?

If you're willing to use a conventional points/condenser setup, the original equipment distributor is hard to beat. Untold millions of them worked for 50+ years in daily driver cars and trucks with only routine tune-ups. It's also possible to convert the stock distributor housing to use components from a General Motors HEI system and keep the "original" look by placing the HEI module in a finned aluminum heat sink, mounted on the firewall or even under the dash.

Send me a private message and I can give you more details on that conversion.

Jerry

Well, Ron you could look for one of Tom Langdon's distributors (they show up for sale here occasionally) or you could as Jerry said get a stock distributor and use points, condenser, coil. Jerry (and I) have had ideas about how to convert a stock distributor into a unit that either fires a single coil or fires 6 coils (each attached to a plug). Tom Langdon had a very good idea with his unit (it was adapted from the Chevy V6 engines from around 1980~82 as I recall) and it worked very well but to be honest there was quite a bit of machining necessary to make them.

This guy will convert any original dizzy to an HEI setup. He's been around for decades and has a very good reputation in the antique Cadillac community.

As he rightly points out, "Pertronix" (although not named explicitly) is not a High Energy Ignition system despite what they try to tell you.


DAVE's small-body HEIs Converts your original points style distributor to HEI system
24 Buffalo Lane
Yerington, Nevada, 89447
775- 722-3294
[email protected]
http://www.davessmallbodyheis.com/

This motor is going in a '41 pickup with all of the stock ignition for the 216. What I hope to find is a reliable new or rebuilt Delco type distributor.

There is nothing particularly mysterious about "HEI" (High Energy Ignition). It's simply an ignition coil capable of producing open circuit voltage above 50 KV- - - - -far above what a conventional point type ignition system can develop due to the limited current capacity of conventional ignition points. The 50 KV capacity was mandated by the "Clean Air Act" of 1968- - - -which required engines to go "emissions legal" for at least 50 K miles without the ignition or fuel systems being serviced. That problem is solved by using a high primary current coil triggered by solid state electronics instead of points. Since clean, properly gapped spark plugs usually fire reliably at less than 10 KV, "HEI" is really just for people who are too lazy to do regular tuneups. Even full throttle acceleration requires less than 20 KV at the spark plugs.

If you're planning on running the original 6V electrical system, your options are going to be VERY limited when trying to use electronic ignition.
Jerry

I am running 12 volts