OT ford electronic ignition

Question for Ford people. I want to replace a '70s Ford 302 engine with an '80s engine (carburetor, not injected). How do I wire in the newer distributor?

If you are putting the newer engine in a running '70's vehicle,, pull the dist. from the new engine and drop in the original one, making sure that the rotor is pointing in the same direction as the original.

If you want to go to electronic ignition,,, that is a different story,, depending on which ignition system you have.

its a whole mess of wiring to swap newer dist into older car , but done it alot . got diagram round shop somewhere .

Prefer to use the newer distributor. No points to mess with.

Tony,if the engine is still in the doner vehicle this will be simple. There is indeed a bunch of wires going into and out of the distributer but every one of them go to a control module which is mounted to the firewall or fender. At the module you will find a second pig tail plug with 2 or 3 wires that go elsewhere. Unplug that 2 or 3 wire plug. As a measure of safty disable starter at solinoid. Turn the ignition switch to the on/run position. With volt meter black lead on engine for a ground,test for 12 volts inside the plug you removed from control module with red meter lead. That is run and will conect to wire that supplies 12 volts on 302 coil. Have a helper hold ignition switch to start position. Test for 12 volts as before. That is start and gos to start post of ignition or starter side of solinoid so that it recieves 12v only while engine is cranking. Turn ignition off. If there is a 3rd wire,test it at ohm setting for o resistance to engine block which would be simply a ground wire. Reconnect tested plug to module,clip wires off 8 inches back,leave other wires from module to distributor connected. Unbolt module from fender and zip tie it along with bundled wires to intake manifold. That's it.

Get a D.U.I. distributor... Only ONE wire (power) to connect. WAY less stressful and more reliable than anything Dorf produced in that era.

<img src = "http://www.outlawraceparts.com/images/products/preview/dui1318211.jpg">