I would look at the Crane stuff, Mercury Marine uses it it must be good.
I have a 455 oldsmobile engine bolted on to a berkeley 12jb pump. i just picked up this boat as a project. well long story short i bought the boat and it needed a distributor so i purchased a complete new stock one. The other day i talked to the guy i bought the boat from and he told me he had a box of parts that went with it, in that box there is a complete msd ignition setup a ready to run distributor pn: 8529, blaster 2 coil, 6al ignition controller and its all brand new. so my question is should i use my stock ignition and sell this setup or is it really worth it to run the msd? the motor is pretty much stock? right now all i want to do is get this boat up and running? what do you think?
I would look at the Crane stuff, Mercury Marine uses it it must be good.
Since you just bought the stock one, if you can, I'd return it and save the dollar bills. Not that the MSD setup is going to make any real difference in your app, just that you have it, and it should be fine.
Also, if/when the 6al NON-BOAT box dies/gets wet and fries, a R2R dist. can be run without it, and still get you arround the water without a tow rope.
Also, IMO, the ONLY "advantage" purpose of the box, is the rev limiter, which you will never hit unless you cavitate it bad (like getting airborne).
I sure wouldn't spend even MORE $$$$$$ on yet a 3rd ignition system.
Like Smokin' said, I'd run the MSD setup. You get a much hotter spark, and with the R2R distributor, if the box goes bad it's not hard to bypass it and run right off the distributor. Hell, it's a free high performance igntion...use it!
MSDs kick azz...keep the MSD and return the stock stuff if possible...
I'd sell the MSD and get the Crane HP module kit to go in the stock distributor.
If you run the MSD, just make sure th ebox is grounded to the same point your battery is grounded to, and make sure there is no paint/annodize in the way.
i bought the stock iginition offline so there wouldnt be any returning it.
my personal oppinion ! I have notices more and more msd failing threads - stick with the stock, If it's an Hei app - If it is points - run msd
its an hei distributor? Im thinking about selling the msd setup and putting the money elsewhere. how much do you really gain from the msd?