Ferrari Mailing List: Re: First 308 GT4 Now Sun Distributor Machine! ha

[Peter Rychel (dino308gt4]

Rob, we did this because DM were blowing out those distributors at rock-bottom prices. They were only $700/ea when everybody else was selling them at double. Now, they start at $2500 and are made-to-order. Not by Marelli but by some shop/foundry in Italy. Yeah, $5000 to equip an engine. DM were selling so much stuff that I should’ve bought. BCD-Corona fuel pumps for $75!!! WTF. It was probably the prelude to their decision to retire and offload the business. I’m not a fan of Tom Vail’s website, very clunky to navigate and I have no idea if he has anything in stock or not. I haven’t bought anything from him since he took over and it’s a shame because I get all of my stuff from the UK now.

 

Those S159C distributors are neat and I bet you only a handful exist. Yes the points cams have sharp ramps, but the dwell angles were around the same and behaved like normal on the car.

 

Honestly, I just bought them to get the shafts/cups inside. Nobody else were selling these spline-drive assemblies on their own. Dog-drive yes, these no. I think Hill Engineering are finally making them now.

 

Peter

 

Sent from Mail for Windows

 

 

From: Robert Garven
Sent: June 19, 2023 9:34 PM
To: PeterGT4
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] First 308 GT4 Now Sun Distributor Machine! ha

 

Doug,

 

I think now he wants like 3500. But he repaints and rebuild them etc. Funny story a little kid down the street told my wife I had a time machine because when it's spinning around and flashing the kids in the neighborhood would freak out. I know a lot of people move onto the electronic ignition but I'm trying to keep the old school stuff as much as I can. There's not too many people do mess with these things anymore. There's a guy David North in Forza who will rebuild distributors. 

 

I have some funny stories, I know Brian and Clyde knew a couple of great guys that worked at Ferrari of Atlanta, Ken and Harold. They told me hey we got some distributors for you but there for the early GT4 but no one wants them so we'll sell them to you for a good price. I bought them and they were the dog drive like my 74 car has now. I never thought I'd be able to use them or the parts so I sold the cups to guy that had a Daytona. The other funny part of the story, I have like 10 distributors and I was doing a lot more experimenting back then. Anyway I took out all those brand new parts that were in those ones, and put all those parts in a couple distributors that I bought from some one maybe Stuart Chung? For some reason I forgot I did that and I traded those two distributors I think to Brian at Ted Rutlands as a core exchange for rebuilt ones by Bill Rudd. If I would've kept those they were  brand new off the shelf for my 74 car. What's funny a lot of times I have parts I've had forever and then I sell them and I need them tat some point down the road! ha

 

I'm not sure why we did this but Peter and I were buying distributors from Dennis McCann used for the Japanese GT4’s . I think I ended up buying a few off of Peter and I have 4 now. They were really weird and all of them were missing one of the pins in the weights and they had a really strange overly Square cam

 

 

If anyone is interested in Michael Florio I think you might've been on the list at one time did a really nice write up on the distributors I can post it if anyone's interested.

 

 

 

Rob