Day 2 67 Camaro restoration

[Chuck_Burg]

I guess I can't leave well enough alone.

When I was restoring the car I purchased some nice Packard SS550 wires on eBay only to find the vintage style straight boots to be incompatible with the MSD distributor cap so I decided to leave the existing wires my engine builder provided thinking the look would grow on me. As time went on the distributor and wires just became an eye sore for me! I pulled the original distributor (dated July 13th, 1966) out of the original 327 and set out to restore it and put it in my big block.

I found a brand new brown 309R cap and 409R rotor on eBay, both sealed in their original boxes. I was going to go with Pertronix but decided what the hell, may as well keep it super old school and stick with points. I went with Blue Streak DR2371XP points and Blue Streak DR-70XP condenser based on my engine builders 50 years of experience. I removed the original grease and thoroughly cleaned the entire housing, then polished the distributor shaft and points cam with an emery cloth. The shaft bushings were still in very good shape so I didn't replace those. After reassembly, it was getting way too much centrifugal advance so after some math, I determined I needed to shorten the advance slot by about .064". To solve this I applied a small bit of weld to the slot and used a rasp to file the slot to the determined length of .381", compared to the factory .445". The factory slot was giving it 28* of advance, now I get 18* of advance which suits this engine nicely. 18* initial and 36* total which comes in at an early 2,000rpm. I am not using the vacuum advance and went as far as to put some silicon on the point plate to prevent it from advancing at all. I went with the Moroso advance kit, using one of the lightest advance springs and one of the medium springs. I also installed a brand new Comp Cams composite distributor gear.

Now the L88 wires are right at home on this restored distributor and it really looks like it would have back in the day. It performs great as well! With the amount I use the car, I probably won't have to mess with it too much anyway.