Thread: Howdee

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Hi,
I'm new to this site. I have been a diehard rodder/builder for years and nothing gets my blood pumping more than a traditionally built rod or a muscle car outfitted with vintage speed equiptment.

I hope to bring much talent to this site as my niche is Vintage Mallory distributors...

Thanks.

Michael L. Mancini

I am in Australia where we used to be allowed to drive fast cars fast - before radar and do gooder politicians stuck most of the nation with 60 mph speed limits - ever more so over the last 10 years.

Having said that, many aussies still build/love fast V8 engined cars, rodding growing and growing, as baby boomers now often see their friends dropping dead around them without enjoying themselves more before they went/go.

I have a slightly uprated (suspension wise) Inca Gold 57 T/Bird that needs to go faster - was chasing a 57 368 Lincoln motor for it, or otherwise a McCulloch blower to make it a defacto 'F-Code' but meanwhile picked up an early Mallory tach drive dual point dizzy for it. And with it came a Mallory Magspark Coil setup. This has two ceramic like round shielded gizzmos on each side, and wire picks up, 'take offs' from each of these.
Q1. Firstly were/are these units any good - how good versus later simpler coils?
Q2. How do you wire it into the dual point distributor - one terminal is marked "IGN SWITCH" - that one pretty simple. Also there is an old cut off coil lead that obviously goes to centre of dizzy cap - that pretty clear.
Beyond that, I need help. On the side mount bracket is possibly a capacitor/condensor - Mallory (with a "36" stamped in base), that has a pickup point/terminal, that seems to be connected by a wire to one of the ceramic thingos. Is this corect, and what happens with other thingo's pick up point/terminal?

Apart from the T/Bird. I have had a 57 Chrysler 300C coupe for about 25 years, and am putting alloy Wiend manifold, bigger Carter period carbs, 4 bolt exhaust manifolds. etc.
Q3. I was wondering is it worth putting Mallory dual point in place of factory dual point that is stock?
Q4. Will a tach drive Mallory fit, and how common are early ones - worth looking for, or forget unless very lucky?

Gas prices over here for 90 octane unleaded were recently 140c a litre, premium another 10c a litre. They have slipped back to now just on 125c a litre. Turbo jap cars were big here a few years back with young people (especially Nissan), but now the trend seems to be into our late 60s GM and Ford musclecars, our GT Falcons and Holden Monaros - they were good for about 130 mph stock in goodf tune. Amongst rods, we now have world class glass body builders (especially re Fords 28- 40), as well as builders of new pre war chassis.

Many aussie rodders go to the US, so many/most of you already likely know this stuff.
yours from Australia in spring 2005
aussie chris

Afraid I can't help too much on the T Bird, but I have some thoughts on your "C".

If your looking for an upgraded iginition why not go electronic?

I had a customer with a 300F that converted his stock distributor to electronic many years back and I am doing the same on a couple of Hemi projects I am building.

The conversion is pretty straight foward.

Remove the vacume advance, breaker plate.

Remove the top of the distributor shaft (the point cam and advance weight assembly). It's held on with a small clip located in the center of the shaft located under the rotor, there may be a small piece of felt covering it.

Install a small block (mid 70's) reluctor/advance assembly, breaker plate, pickup and vacume advance. Don't use big block items as the vacume advance works in the opposite direction).

It will use the stock cap and later style rotor.

All thats left to do is wire in the later control box and it's ready to go.

The setup uses the later rotor and stock cap.

As you retain the stock housing and shaft you also still have the tach drive.