Billet distributor

[low4x4]

i have a msd billet and the shaft is twice the size as the oem style with better electrics..that are not interchangeable with the factory electrics

 

[Aloicious]

I run a billet one, this was back when there weren't many made, and I had to choose billet or plastic....the OE plastic distributor body was a piss poor cost cutting idea by some dumbass beancounter at GM. I would use an aluminum body one over the OE any day of the week for reliability and longevity. the plastic ones are pretty much guaranteed to have problems eventually as the plastic ages and becomes brittle. the hold down ears either break off, or the holes strip out, or the worst is that they get hairline cracks which have enough play to not hold the screws down well enough, but aren't easily seen without closely inspecting....however if you're looking for performance or something, it doesn't offer a benefit in that area.

the autozone, or e-bay aluminum distributors are far less expensive than the billet and offer the same benefits, without the shinyness.

if you go to this page that I made about setting a distributor, I used my stock OE distributor as the demonstration model, you can see in the pics both ears are cracked around the mounting holes, those cracks were enough to leave me stranded once (if I would have known what the problem was I wouldn't have been stranded, but it let go of the hold down bolts while I was driving just enough to not let the cap contacts meet the rotor contact) it was after that when I switched to aluminum:
http://www.gmtruckcentral.com/articles/distributor.html