My story on the Electronic distributor

[sethracer]

Okay – my story on the “Stinger” distributor. Starting in the late 80’s, I started going back to the SEMA show every year. I had attended with Bill Fisher and HP Books back in the 70s, when they were supplying the ‘How to Hot Rod Corvair Engines’ book. I answered questions in the booth a bit. In the 70’s I had converted several Corvair distributors over to Chrysler magnetic reluctors and pick-ups. It wasn’t tough to do, if you had a way to precision grind the original GM points cam down. Changing advance was still painful, since it involved disassembly. I used this on YS003 driving my MSD-6A directly with the mag pulse. Fast forward to the 80s. At SEMA, I noticed that MSD had just brought out a new distributor for the in-line Chevy 6, based on the GM V6 dist of the late 60s. As many of you are aware, except for a few things, like the shaft, the drive gear and one or two specific dimensions, the 60s in-line 6-cyl dist. can fit into the Corvair rear housing. I bought a couple of them, MSD allowed me a reasonable price, and I built both up as Corvair distributors, with mag-pulse out to plug into external CD boxes. These were mechanical advance only units and they ended up in a couple of Racing Stingers, a couple of years later. But MSD told me they were not interested in adding to their product line. I bought a few more distributors , and had a machine shop make 10 more shafts. Of the ten, only half of the shafts made it through heat treat and final machining. The guy was good about it, but didn’t want to do more. I finished those and walked away. This was not a viable product, at that point. Those few sold quickly because most of the racers already had MSDs and were happy to trigger them without the hassle of points. Of all those MSD units, I only had one failure, during a quick re-assembly before a race, one part was incorrectly installed and failed. It was repaired and is still racing. Also, during that time, each year, at SEMA, I had been pushing Pertronix to bring out a unit for the Corvair, they did bring one out – for the Chevy in-line 6! ARRG! They offered to make them, if I would buy several hundred, cash up front. After a few more years I stopped asking. As I was leaving SEMA in 2012, I stopped by a small booth from a company Top Street Performance. They had, on display, GM Large cap HEI clones, ready to drop into your Ford or Mopar engine. It was a small market, but people wanted to do it. I talked with them about possibly doing a Corvair dist. They told me they were already working on a Ford 6-cyl dist, based on the pre-HEI sized GM V6 distributor. When I got home, I sent them several distributors and worked out a relationship with them. I did not have sole rights to the dist. It was their investment. After a couple of prototypes, they had a working unit. The internal electronic pack is the same exact part used in their 8-cylinder units, and in their Ford dist also. These units, unlike the MSD models I built, came with vacuum advance and those internal electronic pieces. The industry term is “Ready to run”. Hook up a coil, power and ground and off you go. I received the first production units late in early 2014. I actually drove down to Southern California and brought an Avalanche full of distributors home, when they received them. (In case there is any doubt, they are designed and made in China, not in California.) The units have always come with the advance curve kit to alter the amount and rate of mechanical advance. The earlier units, until a few years ago had a fixed vacuum advance, the newer ones are adjustable. I started out selling them direct to customers. What I offered, at first, was to “tune” the advance curve to the customers intended motor. And shipped to folks ready to go. At the same time, I started supplying distributors to both Clarks Corvair and California Corvair, again setting them up and checking them before shipping. This worked fine but was eating up my time. I had just retired and wanted to work on my own cars. Finally, my laziness kicked in. At the same time there had been a few failures of the electronics. (I once answered the phone on a Sunday afternoon to hear from somebody stuck on the side of the road in Missouri.) I built the capability of testing and repairing the units, but I didn’t like seeing any failures, and there is nothing I could do. I opted to hand over sales of the units straight to Clarks and California Corvair. I am not involved with selling those. They get them from TSP. I have repaired units, (I still do), and TSP was good about replacing the electronics if they failed in the warrantee period. I often have supplied tech advice to their tech folks, as well. At the same time TSP was distributing them out to other sellers, hence the “Internet” sales. I had no exclusive on the Ready-to-run units. But I still wanted to support the racers. I knew the interchangeability of parts would allow me to supply a magnetic out unit without any internal electronics. This time I did cut the deal to be exclusive on the mag-out units. A bonus of the unit is that with the mechanical advanced locked out, the unit functions as a crank trigger, works great with EFI! A couple of years ago, I got a call from my contact at Pertronix. They were going ahead with a Corvair distributor, using the Pertronix Ignitor module. They sent me a prototype to test and give feedback. It was not a TSP unit, although the cap will interchange! The internal are different. They sent an Ignitor II system which I tested. I suggest they supply it with either an Ignitor I module to avoid occasional PG problems, or an Ignitor III, to add some features. They said they understood the Ignitor II issue, the Ignitor III has the same idle cut off question. The one I have seen delivered had an Ignitor II installed. Oh well, I tried. I know that a few years ago, the manufacturer of the TSP Ready-to-run units updated the electronics inside. I have seen one failure of the later one. I also know that the electronics package from an MSD Brand Chevy V8 Ready to Run dist will fit fine in a TSP dist. MSD is now part of Holley, and I am no longer a Holley dealer.
Coil recommendations: As I mentioned, the safe method for street use is to feed full battery voltage to the distributor and use a 3.0 ohm coil. That will limit the amount of current the electronics inside will have to switch, but supply the control circuits inside the dist with their designed voltage. One of the good things about my magnetic-out units is – No connections from the distributor to the coil! When the distributors first came out I followed the TSP recommendation, which was to use their own. .6 ohm, coil. (No big surprise.) I don’t think they really know the difference.
The future. As long as I can buy the replacement electronics from TSP, I intend to test and repair any distributors I can. I intend to supply the Mag-pulse out units for racers/performance street guys and EFI builders. Along with that I will continue to pursue new Corvair Specific Performance items. I have a new part coming out soon! Stay tuned!

[edwardsjethro]

Very detailed, thank you.

[66vairguy]

Thanks Seth for the explanation. It does reveal how time consuming and costly it is to get a product into the market.

[davemotohead]

Seth, I have one of the first Generation units you were selling, is it good or will it fail? I have never ran it yet? If its the failure model is there a fix for it?

[caraholic4life]

I purchased two of the Electronic Distributors from Seth when in January 2015 to show my support but have not yet installed either of them....I don't know if these were part of the first run or not.
Time will tell if I ever do install them if they perform well or not but I have faith they should be good.

[Phil Dally]

That's your story...and you're sticking to it!!

[sethracer]

I tested each one before shipping. They should be fine. I can tell you how to test them before you install them if you are concerned. I built a cool test unit. I can test either type of dist. But it is easy for you to check in your garage.