53 flathead .003 bore Merc crank mild cam
tripple deuce carb progressive linkage

Do I need to change the distributor to a centrifical advance type?
Speedway has some, but one says you have to drill out the hole? (DON'T WANT TO ATTEMPT THAT)

F100 Truck still in restore mod, so I haven't driven it yet.

 

I went to the mallory system, completely mechanical advance. Highly recomended

 

Snowking,
Where did you get it from?

 

You do need to change distributors due to the multi-carbs and the cam change. Lots of people complain about the stock 8BA distributor, but it works fine on a stock engine.

 

A Chevrolet point distributor (same rotation, parts availability and similar dimensions)
Lathe
‘70s Chrysler electronics/ reluctator and pickup
Adjustable Vac advance can

Looks almost stock and virtually bulletproof outside of having to carry a spare ballast resistor (the problem with that system). It can be done very easily in a couple of hours. The machine work is pretty straight forward. Just measure the flatty and cut the Chevy accordingly using the flatty gear. Attention does have to be paid as to the placement of the pickup coil on the Chevrolet advance plate (rotor phasing in a round about way)

Any aftermarket parts house has advance kits for the Chevy and adjustable advance cans for the old point dist.

“set” the mechanical curve using a tachometer, timing light and degreed/marked the stock wheel. Only as a starting point using the ford FSM as a reference.

“T” a vacuum gauge into the Vacuum advance line to read @ part throttle/highway cruise to set the can (pinging). The guage is a reference only for tuning
I guarantee you will be amazed at the responsiveness.

 

One more item on the Chrysler system, air gap on the reluctor is critical and must be set with a non-magnetic feeler gauge.

Another tidbit for all. The Lucas "Constant Energy" ignition used in the last of the MGBs and retrofitted on earlier models with a failed Opus system uses a Chrysler style pickup, the same coil as the Opus and a GM HEI 4 pin module in a case/heat sink. It (even though it is GM) is infinitely more reliable than the Chrysler system.

 

Not too sure if the Lucas is compatible with the Chrysler 8 reluctor. Whole bunch of possible issues +0- (null) to fire the module (rotation etc). Interesting subject though.
I built this about 15 years ago and still on the ‘49. I think I did about 5 or 6 of them back then using the KISS principle of hot rodding. I could never find another Chevrolet “Mag Pulse” pickup I used on the Vega would have made the whole thing a lot easier.
As far as “reliability” that particular system was used on every Chrysler product for almost 20 years, why I chose it. The Chrysler racing parts book gave the specs on their various modules (about a full page). Pick the one that suited my application.
My daily driver (73 Vega big head duel quad 355 with a light wheel and 4 speed) had the Chrysler “gold box” 7,000 rev limiter and chip suppression using the corvette “mag pulse” (actually a Capacitive Discharge) Pickup (rotation/null same). The Acel quart fruit jar coil (Yellow) was recommended by Chrysler in their speed parts book. Great piece for it’s time.
Most guys tossed the Chevrolet module. Above 5500 the dwell time/coil saturation fell off pretty quickly
I was going to do an HEI for the flatty but didn’t like the physical size, never could find the flatty under that big cap. With the duel quad on the Vega was out of the question

 

The Lucas pickup ohms out to be the same as the Chrysler. I worked for Tysinger Motors in Hampton VA, at the time they sold Mercedes-Benz, Dodge, MG and Jaguar. Since the flathead rotates opposite the OHV Ford V8s with DS-I or DS-II you can't use them. For a non-vacuum advance conversion, look at the late Chevy marine applications, it is an HEI with external coil and a relatively small cap. You might be able to just use the marine module in place of the computer controlled advance system. The Remote coil model uses an "E" core coil like the Ford TFI system. I have an HEI converted setup for a Corvair using an early 2.8L Chevy distributor adapted to a Corvair drive. It uses the "E" core coil with an internal to the distributor module.

On the MOPAR stuff, I got real good at changing boxes and ballast resistors on them. The early ones were probably the most failure prone electronic ignitions out there.