Alrighty, I'm adding a new distributor to my intake up rebuild since it's gotta come out anyway. However... I've been reading posts and looking at photos and have a question. All new distributors for my car look different than my stock one. Basically, the pieces directly under the rotor. Anyone have any expereince with this discrepancy or at least know why they changed the design? I COULD rebuild mine, but considering I'd be replacing everything short of the shaft I figured a new one would be as cost effective or better and not require all the hassle to rebuild it.

The picture shows what mine looks like and a new one. The red circled area is where the major differences lie. These are just your standard Napa/Autozone/etc distributors, not any high end MSD or Accel or anything. Just need to know if this new design is good enough for a stock rebuild or if there are any known problems.

 

It appears to be an unshielded version of the stock item. As long as the reluctor and pickup coil produce an acceptable trigger signal, and the module switches the coil load accordingly, it should work fine.

The reasons to redesign a part are to:

1. Lower production costs;

2. Improve reliability;

3. Improve servicability.

Since the aftermarket probably doesn't care much about #3, and only cares about #2 to the extent that it would survive a warranty period, we can assume that a major factor in the apparent redesign is production cost.

Again, cheaper isn't necessarily lower quality, and so long as it works, it should be fine.

 

Stock HEI distributors were unshielded for years.

 

Yup, were using the dis in picture 2( updated) works good so far in my GF's RS

 

I had those two types side by side last week. The new remanufactured version feels "better" is all I can say. There is a much more positive detent feel in the new version which probably comes from magnetic attraction as the trigger wheel spins around. According to service info, the new version appears to be much better as well -- you can change the Pick-Up Coil without removing the distributor from the engine. I wanted one, but didn't have the money at the time so I went a less expensive route.

In my opinion, the worst drawback from the new version is that it is not a GM ICM -- will function just the same, but I've found a lot of OEM replacement manufacturer's parts don't last as long. It won't die in 2 weeks, but will probably last (for example) 6 years instead of 13.