Help with VS V8 Distributor Purchase Recommendation

[LXCHEV]

I'm a bit late to this thread, but for what it’s worth:

The majority of my following comments relate to Small-Block Chev V8s - but should directly apply to VN-VS stuff too;

1. You can buy brand new ‘Road Star’ distributors on eBay out of NSW. Incredibly cheap. I was chatting to the lads at Scorcher ignition about them - and they said they can be prone to issues - out of phase, pins can come off, dwell is rarely right, and they can have shaft issues. But they actually make for a good starting point. Scorcher pull them down and essentially blue-print them - replacing key components with higher quality gear, and then you end up with a pretty awesome dizzy. You can either source once and supply to them for re-co, or buy outright. Last time I spoke with them, an outright unit was around $400, what they called a 'Blueprint'.

2. Still on Scorcher - they also sell their own hand-made in-house distributors - essentially full-spec Bosch. We're talking $800 though. But this is a dizzy for life.

3. Trusty old option 3 is to simply re-use a factory original Bosch unit, and have it fully re-co'd. This is what I did for my V8 VR. I actually had a Road Star unit that came with the car in a box, but I chose to sell that off (thinking it was rubbish) and re-co the original Bosch unit. It wasn't until much later that I gained the above insights from Scorcher about the Road Star ones. But I still love sticking with original Bosch gear anyway. The Commo dizzy's are very simple, so re-co's aren't very pricey. From memory around the $200 mark.

 

[BlackVXGTS]

Another (hopefully last) update.
After just two years and only 6000kms since my last report, went to start the car on Saturday morning, after it had been working fine all the previous Friday, and the no-start problem re-appeared. Sprayed some "Start You Bastard" and it briefly fired up. Suspected the new fuel pump I previously installed had failed, and me with an almost fuel tank of petrol. Ordered a new fuel pump on that basis.

Next morning, thought I would just give it a try and it started up fine as normal. In the afternoon went to the local Shopping Centre and when I returned to the car, the damn thing wouldn't start again. Checked the error codes in the car park and they displayed DTC46 - No reference pulses while cranking. So, ignition module, coil, HES, wiring or something else. Installed the spare ignition module and coil that I keep in the car, thankful that I had previously relocated it to the strut tower, but nothing made any difference. So, onto a tow truck and back to my home, fortunately only a couple of kms away (no way was I going to leave it in the SC car park overnight).

Next step was the distributor (HES). I thought that I had previously replaced the Clubsport distributor and remembered it being such a bastard of a job given the lack of clearance between the motor and firewall. However, on checking my maintenance records, I found that I had only replaced the distributor cap and rotor previously. I had replaced a number of distributors in my 304/355/383 VS Calais over the years, but that was with a Motec TTB which provided a little bit more clearance (but didn't make the job that much easier).

Long story short, the new distributor is finally installed, timing is perfect, car starts and runs well, hopefully for another few years. I spread the work over three or four afternoons to in order retain my sanity.

 

[Fu Manchu]

What brand did you go with?

 

[BlackVXGTS]

Couldn't find a Fuelmiser available for purchase. Decided to go with an RAE brand as they are sold by both Repco and Bursons (not necessarily a good recommendation given the number of sub-standard components being sold these days).

Seems to be OK, the only issue I found was that the retaining clips kept falling off during installation, which was a real PITA. The original OEM was much better in that regard.