i'll take a swing- hopefully someone will jump in if i miss something.

for a Duraspark conversion, order all parts for a 1976 truck:
distributor
distributor cap (the wide cap)
distributor cap adapter
spark plug wires
ignition module
ignition coil
wiring harness (between the dizzy and the module...i don't think you can buy this at the store, but i've been wrong before.)

basically- all of this:
http://www.fordmuscleforums.com/atta...i-illust_2.jpg

you can save a LOT of money by doing some of your shopping in a junkyard.

wiring diagram:
http://www.fordmuscleforums.com/atta...conv-tfi_2.jpg

 

Easy enough. From my gallery:



If you were to walk into a parts store to buy everything new, you'd need:

Duraspark distributor for a '75-'76 FE. Let's say a Ford truck with the 390 from those years. Should come with the pickup coil installed.

Ignition module with blue grommet

Cap, cap adapter and Rotor for same

Good quality plug wires for the same application, since the cap end terminals are specific to the cap.

Alternatively, you could stay with the stock points style cap, rotor and wires but you run some risk of crossfire, (which is why they went to the spread-style cap) especially with the hotter spark of the TFI coil. I don't recommend it.

Coil for same, or TFI coil if you want to do that upgrade.

Resistor or resistance wire.

For the wiring harness you'll need to hit the wrecking yard. You can of course build your own harness from scratch but you wouldn't have the Ford connectors, you'd have to use spade connectors. Some Ford products with DS used a harness with the entire ignition system integral with the harness (Ford van comes to mind) and others used a separate harness which can be unplugged and easily adapted to other vehicles.

And maybe one or two other things that escape me at the moment...

EDIT: Well, you get a little repetition here as I was typing all this out while the above was being posted...

 

better to have too much information than not enough, right?


the only tweak i'd make to TigerDan's list is that you'll have to stick to ordering at least the distributor from a '76, since that was the last year of the FE (and conveniently for us FE people, the first year of the Duraspark II).

 

Well, I'm not much of an FE guy but I was under the impression that '78 was the last year, which was why I said '77-'78. (EDIT: Above post corrected as to year.)

 

I can give my 2 cents worth, pertronix is not the way to go! I had 3 in my 72 in a 360 and had failures, they sent back new ones saying nothing was wrong with the units but each time I got a new one. They would fail on hot starts, not start till they cooled off, one left me in mid traffic glad I had the points in the glove box, this all in 2yrs time. I to thought of dura spark cause I had good luck with them for years, even converted the 2.8 I put in my alpine. I put the hei type dizzy in the truck and have had no trouble for the first year so either way the only thing I say is no pertronix for me ever again!
Joe

 

Alpine? As in Sunbeam? What year? PM me if you wanna gab about it so as not to derail this thread. (I have two of them...and one guess what the Tiger part of my handle stands for...)

 

Do the plugs that go to the factory wiring harness hook right up or are they different for different years? And Are 77-78 FE's the only trucks that have the Duraspark? I need to know what to hunt for at the junkyard. I just stumbled on this thread and think this is a good conversion for my 68 with a 360.

 

All the Duraspark plugs I've encountered are the same. They do tend to be fragile and a lot of them are pretty deteriorated after all these years, so you have to see if they come apart in one piece or break and fall apart when you disconnect them from your donor vehicle in the wrecking yard. It's not uncommon for the tabs to break off. And I've used regular spade connectors on the terminals before as well.

Virtually everything in Ford's lineup went to DS starting in about '75, and I think the next year, '76, was the improved DS II. You need at least the distributor off an FE engine, whether it's on a truck or in a passenger car doesn't matter (although I'm not sure if they were still putting FEs in passenger cars at that time, but I don't think so...as I said, I'm not an FE guy) but all the rest can come from any DS-equiped vehicle. Be sure to look at the plastic grommet where the wires connect to the control module, they were different colors for different applications and I think they came in blue, green, brown and maybe yellow. You want the blue, that's the universal application that works well with everything. Might want to pick up a couple of them so you have a spare. New ones can still be had for around 25-30 bucks.

 

No such thing as 77 or 78 with a factory installed FE, the FE last saw life in the 76 models.
The 74 models were partly DS, partly points. By 75, the DS system was pretty much standard.
As far as I am aware, the dist is the same for 74-76 DS/DS2 FE's. The difference was the control box and wiring.

 

Yes, that's correct...the last year of FE production was '76, not '78 as I posted earlier. It was the FT that was produced till '78... I'll go back and edit that post to avoid confusion...

 

OK, I think I found a guy who has everything I need for the conversion. The only thing is he said it sthe "small distributor" cap? It does have the blue grommet. Is $85 a good price? He said its been in the truck for 4 years so he doesnt know if the box is any good or not. Its at a near by salvage yard.

 

If the $85 is for ALL of the components to convert to Duraspark, I would say that it is a fair price. Just make sure it does have a blue grommet, and the stock coil should have a horseshoe connector for it in the harness.

As for the small distributor cap, that is an easy fix. The small cap was used with the Duraspark I with the red ignition module. Duraspark II got the better blue grommet high energy ignition module and added a clamp-on distributor adapter to fit a larger distributor cap. The larger cap was used to prevent cross-fires.

Distributor cap adapter:
NAPA AUTO PARTS

Distributor cap:
NAPA AUTO PARTS

 

That's not too bad for everything. By "Small cap" he means the standard distributor cap I mentioned earlier, that was used on the early DS systems before they went to the large style cap with the adapter to space the terminals out to prevent cross-fire. See if you can get him to throw in the cap adapter from another vehicle so you can use the big cap (you'd want to get a new cap and rotor anyway), he should have something...it can be off of virtually any Ford V8 with DS ignition, I think '77-'85. You can buy them new too, here's one from O'Reilly's for 8 bucks:

BWD C194AP - Distributor Cap | O'Reilly Auto Parts

Click on the "Compatibility" tab on the page I linked to and you will see a list of everything that adapter fits.

Looks we were thinking along the same lines, I was still typing and finding links while you were posting...!

 

OK guys thanks for the input!

 

Just an added tip. The small cap and big cap use different plug wires, due to the terminals on the cap. Small cap has "female" terminals, while the big cap has "male" terminals.