My final question, After all is said and done , I can see better drive-ability but do you feel for the work and cost involved, that the Aces setup will provide more horsepower.? The 4.9L V8 is capable of more power but the heads don't flow great and use small valves. A turbo can really wake things up as PBJ's install did but I believe he used the stock ECM and tuning might have been very difficult,

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quote Originally posted by Dennis LaGrua: My final question, After all is said and done , I can see better drive-ability but do you feel for the work and cost involved, that the Aces setup will provide more horsepower.? The 4.9L V8 is capable of more power but the heads don't flow great and use small valves. A turbo can really wake things up as PBJ's install did but I believe he used the stock ECM and tuning might have been very difficult,

Hey man, I think Aces is the best bang for the buck - I'll double down on that when it comes to Turbo &/or Cam upgrades for 4.9s. The Aces systems make both of those upgrades possible/ much easier without the complications of trying to use an OEM or Cadillac ECM. So I would say yes, an Aces system will lead to more HP out of 4.9 motors, particularly with upgrades. My focus on a distributor solution started with plans to turbo an Allante 4.5, so I want to use the Aces Wild Card system which is somewhat universal multiport that supports boost with wideband integrated. That project is a ways out, but with any luck I'll have the new distributor running in my Skylark this weekend....

quote Originally posted by Dennis LaGrua: My final question, After all is said and done , I can see better drive-ability but do you feel for the work and cost involved, that the Aces setup will provide more horsepower.? The 4.9L V8 is capable of more power but the heads don't flow great and use small valves. A turbo can really wake things up as PBJ's install did but I believe he used the stock ECM and tuning might have been very difficult,

it's for guys like me who have no OEM ECU, and don't feel like learning GM ECUs.

Delta cam on the way!

[This message has been edited by psquare75 (edited 09-11-2025).]

I got some time in the shop today, here's a couple of pics of the 7 + 1 reluctor wheel that makes the dual-sync happen = ECM knows every 45* of camshaft rotation. All 8 blades have evenly spaced leading edges (first part of the blade) that goes through the hall effect sensor. The skinny one is for #1 cylinder (the +1). The hall effect sensor outputs a square wave signal so it is more accurate than an HEI magnetic pickup.






I was asked about oiling for the distributor gear and if the sleeve would interfere, so here is a couple pics - the block has an oil port just above where the distributor gear mounts, which is deep in the block and the sleeve won't be close.




My initial plan was to tig weld some button holes in the sleeve to the distributor housing. The first one I tried burned through and I realized I didn't need to be that fancy - the only purpose is to keep the sleeve from sliding down in the block, so I made detent...






Given the simple setup with the sleeve, cutting and drilling the distributor shaft is the only challenging part. I measured the Caddy distributor from the mounting base to the top of the gear and used that length to determine cut length and where to drill for the roll pin. The shaft length doesn't have to be too precise, so I cut it under the original hole for easy reference. Important note, the shaft needs to be held all the way up in the distributor when measuring so it doesn't try to pull out of the bore when installed - the Caddy distributor shaft moves up & down about a 1/4" and the Duraspark moves less and has a stop sleeve so if the length used to the gear is too long it will have interference.