Just what the title said,

I need to know if i can reuse my distributor from my 1987 5.7 iroc on my new 383 motor. The new motor is a 70's block with a hydraulic flat tappet cam. Do I need a new distributor gear?? or distributor??? Help me out here. Let me know what i need !!!! thanks.

 

I don't see why not...

 

You can use it as long as you stay with the fuel injection.

 

Why would he have to stay with EFI?

 

Swap the gear for use with a hyrdaulic cam..and your fine.Around $35..

 

If both your engines are/were flat tappet, the distributor gear should be OK, though you may consider replacing the gear with a stock replacement. I believe when interchanging roller and flat tappet cams, the distributor gear needs to be switched.
{I see your original engine was roller- get new gear, as mentioned]


I ran into some trouble when converting from a 305 to a 350 vortec tbi with tbi-vortec intake. The shoulder diameter of the 305 distributor was wider than that of a newer (~96) viersion. I had to buy a 96 distributor and that worked fine. I think my case was pretty rare. I measured both distributors and they are indeed of different shoulder diameter.

Also, if you have not installed the oil pan, install and bolt down your distributor and look for adequate mesh of the cam and distibutor gear from the bottom of the motor. Or, compare the shaft lengths from the bottom of the shoulder to the top (or bottom, or both) of the gear.

2 lane- could you clarify your statement concerning fuel injection and distributor choice?
Thanks,
S-D

 

Hey thanks alot guys,, One more thing though, WHERE DO I GET the distributor gear?? let me know thanks,

And yes I will be using whats in my sig so that would be fi--ltr setup, I dont know why that would matter though.

 

The distributor gear the factory used with their roller cams is called "melonized", which is a coating that makes it last better with the slightly harder factory roller cams. It works fine with flat tappet cams. If it isn't excessively worn, just reuse it. If it shows wear, then get a new one from the dealer, or "borrow" one from an older distributor.

 

Yeah I'd agree with that. Roller cam engines need a hardened gear, but I see no reason that you can't use your 87 dizzy on a flat tappet cam motor. I did the opposite. I've got a 92 roller block in one of my cars that I'm using an early 80s integral coil style dizzy. I had to change the gear to hardened style. The 2 gears looked identical except for the color of the metal. In your case though with the early 70s block I don't know. If I were you I'd try it and see how it fits before I spent any money. If it fits alright I think you are fine.

 

The distributor used on a efi car doesn't have a way to advance correctly when you replace your efi with a carb. It is a electronic distributor that is connected to the computer, and when you carb your car, you essentially render the ecm useless. The oem distributor would work, to say the car will run with it and a carb just not as well as it should. So replacing the distributor with a vacuum or mech advance version would be much more usefull. In my case, when I took the TBI off my car and carbed it the first time I used the stock unit. I learned that wasn't the way to go. Since then all electronics plus the 305 have found its way out of my car.

 

According to his sig he's using the SDPC vortec TPI base, so he's staying TPI.

 

I never changed the gear. It works great. 1988 TBI on 1979 Block with original Distributor and a Comp Cam XE flat tappet