I am new to the Ford truck world anf this board. I just purchased a low mile 1978 F250 from my father in law and am making running upgrades. One project is ignition. I'd like to upgrade to an MSD box to start cleaning up the wiring and vacuum setup and as a first step in upgrade to EFI. The Dura Spark distributor seems like a good setup with high voltage potential.

How would the Dura spark distributor work triggering an MSD box? The box would need to be the type made for magnetic trigger. I'm just wondering if this could be a good setup or if i need to look for a different distributor.

Thanks for any advice.

 

You won’t get a better distributor than the dura spark. It is best to leave it alone. I did have my recurved and put an MSD adjustable timing control box on mine. It has worked great for years, but do not take the resistor out of the coil line if you are running a stock ford coil. Their instructions tell you to do so, but the coil will burn up in no time if it is connected directly to 12 volts. You can go on the MSD website and get a wealth of information.

 

Common for people to use a MSD box and Duraspark distributor combo. Duraspark is not a high energy ignition and the stock module is sufficent for any stock/mildly modified engine. Personally, I don't like mixing up ignition systems. If you don't know what you are doing, it's easy to wire incorrectly.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll plan to stay with the Duraspark then. One more question, does the Duraspark wide cap adaptor and rotor fit on an earlier points only distributor? If so, the point type would make a good MSD trigger also.

 

Short answer is yes.