Are MSD Pro Billet Distributors garbage?

[Justin81]

I bought one of these pro billet distributors(part# 8456) awhile back. About a year after installing it started causing the car to lose spark after about 15-20 minutes of it running and would not start back up unless it sat for a couple of hours. I sent it back to MSD and they replaced all the guts including the module free of charge. The warranty on it was expired so that was making me think it was a common problem with these.

Since then I reinstalled it and haven't had any problems, yet! I do keep my stock distributor and the proper size wrench for the hold down bolt in the car just in case.

Did anyone else experience the same problem with one of these pro billet distributors? Is it maybe a heat soak issue causing the electronics of the distributor to fail?

 

[need4spd90]

I do keep my stock distributor and the proper size wrench for the hold down bolt in the car just in case.

http://forums.corral.net/forums/5-0...aybody-ever-have-problem-msd-distributor.html

 

[ID89GT]

Pretty much just for looks, I know ill be usin a stock one with msd cap and rotor

 

[larrym1961]

I have an MSD Pro Billet and I had mine a month befor the crap MSD TFI module went out on it. MSD did replace it with another, but I don't trust those so I replaced it with the Motorcraft TFI from my stock distributor. The MSD has worked well since with the Ford module.

 

[The_Dude]

I had a "ready to run" MSD distributor in a '69 that crapped out in a similar fashion. Replaced it with a stock points style distributor and all is well. I need to send this one back to MSD.

 

[Onefine88]

I bought a new MSD 8456 and installed it on my SSC a few yrs back. I took the car in for a fresh dyno tune after swapping pulleys for more boost. My friend the tuner told me that the MSD's were crap, I wasted my money and he could prove it.
After retuning my car with the new pulley settup he was ready to prove his point. He picked up a random used stock distributor off the floor in his shop and installed it with the same timing as before.
He then made another pull on the dyno and my car made 12 more rwhp than it did with the MSD.
I left the stocker on the car and I returned the MSD. LOL

I had another MSD 8456 on an '87 vert a couple yrs ago. One day the car started running rough and became hard to start after warmed up. While checking things and eliminating possibilites I checked to see if it was the MSD by swapping it for a stocker. Sure enough, that was it.

I've had three and two had issues

 

[revhead347]

I have an MSD Pro Billet and I had mine a month befor the crap MSD TFI module went out on it. MSD did replace it with another, but I don't trust those so I replaced it with the Motorcraft TFI from my stock distributor. The MSD has worked well since with the Ford module.

Good to know that for future reference.

Kurt

 

[txstang84]

I guess we got lucky on a '95 Cobra...ran for at least three years without a hitch before the car was stolen...

 

[Noobz347]

I guess we got lucky on a '95 Cobra...ran for at least three years without a hitch before the car was stolen...

Wow! They wanted that distributor pretty badly.

 

[Cobra912]

Mine went bad 8456

 

[just4bob50]

I have a Pro billet MSD dist for quite a few years now and it has worked fine, but recently I went to put a new cap and rotor on it and I noticed that one half of the brass terminals in the cap had significantly more wear from the spark than the other half. Looks like the rotor or cap aren't centered to one another. This kind of makes me want to get a Mallory instead, but other than that I cant justify it.

 

[Blown88GT]

Since Ford doesn't make them anymore, there are few options. I went through a couple reman Cardones, both were junk.

BTW, you only hear about the bad MSD's never the good ones. At least my new one didn't generate any bad PIP codes.

 

[Onefine88]

I must confess that I failed to mention in my earlier post that I installed an 8456 on my '88 vert back in 05 and it's still working just fine today.
So they're not all bad.

 

[txstang84]

As funny as that is, the owner was crestfallen about the disappearance of his Cobra...we poured untold hours into that thing only to have some worthless low down piece of scum take off with it...

 

[Noobz347]

Holy quintuple post!

fixt

 

[txstang84]

thankx noobz...stupid app...

 

[Foxslider]

Looking at a used (looks new) 8456 MSD distributor for sale. I'll put it to the test and see what i get. It's $70, looks cool and im a junkie. lol.

I assume the stock distributor is aluminum also? So the MSD should'nt heat soak the TFI module any worse than the stocker. Depends what the stock material is vs. i think the MSD is 6061. Maybe the MSD material soaks up more heat actually making it worse than stocker.

 

[General karthief]

This is my opinion and I have not done any testing to back it up but tfi heat soak problem likely occurs from the engine heat surrounding the area as much as from the distributor itself.
The billet distributor looks better and should dissipate heat better than the cast stock one. I say do it.

 

[Foxslider]

If the dude on FB responds, i will.

 

[General karthief]

Keep your old one around.