I pulled off the old manifold (and, of course, the alternator) from the engine last night and verified some of the fit requirements. While I was in the pulling mood, I also pulled the distributor. There was quite a bit of corrosion around the distributor shaft. I suspect there may have been blasting soda left on the surface that, once it got wet, dissolved the protective coat of oil. In any case, it took substantial effort to pull out the distributor, but there appears to be no permanent damage.

The case stud that the manifold normally mounts to was missing. I recall before discovering that the threads are pretty bad in that case half. I spent a few minutes chasing the threads with a tap and installed a stud which should arguably have been there all along.

I painted the new manifold to match the rest of the engine. Once the EDIS system is in place, I will paint the oil pump block plate and the distributor plug to match.

Speaking of distributor plug, after a brief search, I found an online source [Boost Engineering, since closed] for one, as well as a ready to use trigger wheel/crank pulley.

I have several stock pulleys and a DIY AutoTune trigger wheel.

My plan was to mount the trigger wheel to a stock pulley, with spacers to lift it out from the surface. Since the center hole of the trigger wheel is too small for the head of the bolt and I don’t currently have an appropriate way to enlarge it, I would need to make it removable for access the the crank pulley bolt. Furthermore, I would need to carefully place the wheel very close to the precise angle in relationship with TDC and allow for both radial and angular adjustment of the pickup.

Well, this pulley fixes all those problems at once. It’s not particularly cheap at $135, but it’s a far more elegant solution than what I could make at home. The trigger ring is continuously adjustable, leaving me to be concerned primarily with radial adjustment of the pickup. I’m basically trading dollars for convenience and work time.

Similarly, while I could definitely have someone turn a distributor plug for me or even do my own with my drill press, this one will be here in a couple of days and I’m not sure I could have one made for the same money.

BTW, Boost Engineering [since closed ] also sells complete kits of either MegaJolt ignition only systems or MegaSquirt systems with all the ignition components (no EFI parts). Since I had most of my system components already, I didn’t need the whole shebang, but it’s cool to see someone offering it.