New distributor for '85 GT

If the car is carbureted then just get the MSD and an ignition box and move on. When you have TFI is where the aftermarket distributors kinda suck. Ignition boxes are a whole other personal preference thing and you hear a lot about the poor quality of the newer MSD boxes but I would venture to say that its because more of them are sold than any other brand so with that there will be more failures.

Ignition box wise you have MSD, FAST, Petronix, Mallory, etc. For an ignition coil you cannot beat the quality of Standard Ignition's Bluestreak:

AeroCoupe said:

For an ignition coil you cannot beat the quality of Standard Ignition's Bluestreak:

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/blue-streak/ignition---tune-up/ignition-coil/ignition-coil/90c5da72ae86/standard-ignition-blue-streak-ignition-coil/std2/fd478/v/a/5471/automotive-car-1993-ford-mustang?pos=0

Click to expand...

Seems like a got a great price from Rock auto for mine......

Rock Auto is cheaper the majority of tbe time. I buy from OReilly as I have an account and get a decent break on pricing. The link was not a plug just a way to show the part and provide a part number.

Will that coil work on a carbed 85? Doesn't it use the can-shaped coil? I thought that style coil was for an efi car.

Coil is a coil. I put one on my T-Bird with a carb'd 351. Just got the EFI bracket and mounted it on the front side of the driver strut tower like an injected car. Keeps all the crap out of the way of the fogger system. Couple places to get it from:

AeroCoupe said:

Coil is a coil. I put one on my T-Bird with a carb'd 351. Just got the EFI bracket and mounted it on the front side of the driver strut tower like an injected car. Keeps all the crap out of the way of the fogger system.

Click to expand...

I am going to do the same as the can coil will not fit with my new carburetor....

Forget aftermarket distributors for the majority of use cases. Factory Ford are better and will handle well over 600hp ... Is the factory EEC no longer in place?

I think it’s personal preference. I will never run a stock distributor in a carbed motor but that’s just me. Stock units have bushings and the good aftermarket ones have bearings. They are more accurate and are more stable in high rpm motors.

AeroCoupe said:

Coil is a coil.

Click to expand...

I'd like to disagree with that statement a bit. Can't say for certain, but because I don't think they're totally interchangeable, I'm reasoning that a coil is.... not necessarily a coil. The efi coil is backward compatible, but I'm thinking the can coil is not forward compatible.

See if this makes any sense....

Fact: The can coil has a output voltage of 32 kilovolts, but the efi coil has a 38 kilovolt output.

There's gotta be a reason Ford increased the coil's output voltage nearly 20%. I'm guessing the efi's ignition system needed it, for whatever reason. Truly just speculating though. So while multiple people have proven that the higher output efi coil works fine in the lower output coil's application (makes sense), I'm concluding that the can coil wouldn't have enough uumph (in technical terms) for the efi system to function totally properly. I don't know.... could certainly be wrong.... but just kinda makes sense to me.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried a can coil on an efi car? I could see it maybe working okay at low and mid rpm's, but maybe not being able to entirely do it's job when the sparkalators (see note 1) and the lightning whirler (see note 2) are really getting taxed, say at redline. (Shout-out to Derek at VGG.)

Not trying to start a fight or anything....just kicking around some thoughts. Your thoughts?

Note 1 reference - https://www.oreillyauto.com/vice-grip-garage-sparkalator
(important Product Information available there)
Note 2 reference - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lightning whirler

Never thought about running a can coil on an EFI car so if it is not as hot as a TFI coil then it might be an issue.