How do I know what distribitor I need. I have a choice of two. One with a cast iron gear and one with a steel gear. The cast iron is much more expensive. I am dealing with a bad pip/stator. Should I replace pip/ stator or the whole dist. assembly? I have pretty good mechanical skills, just not all necessary presses and gear pullers put dist. back together.

 

I would buy a new distributor from CarQuest, they are heat tested and are about $130. I tell you this because the re-manufactured ones are not reliable without heat testing,I had 3 fail in a row...luck of the draw

 

The cast iron gear is for NON roller lifter cams, the steel gear is for roller lifter cams.. I'm thinking they were roller after 94 or 95, maybe someone who knows for sure will speak up, I just can't remember right now.. Your 96 should be roller though..

 

OK thanks alot..that's the cheaper one.

 

96 is a roller ...

 

Thanks Lew I couldn't remember the changeover year to save my life...

 

95 is when they started using roller cams

 

Most all 94 had rollers to , some 92-93 had the small roller , ....

 

94 ^ 5.0 = Roller
94 ^ 5.8 = Roller ready (very few in 93 were roller ready, but still had the "F4" cast)

However I am not sure if ford actually put rollers in the 5.8. Maybe the lightning?

 

Here's the modification I did to use rollers...