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Distributor Cap & Rotor Prices; $50 or $20?
Topic Started: Sep 30 2010, 01:10 PM (2,440 Views)
Bad Bent
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Facetious Educated Donkey

Tuesday; It's been a few days since I started the Filthy Beast (1991, 1.0, 2 door, 4 wheels) and it was hard starting, took 5-6 cranks, the dash lights dimmed but it started and ran great.
Wednesday; same thing only it took two tries to get it to start. :rasp

After making one trip to storage I decided to check the plugs. #1 was Black sooty carbon :O ...#2 same and #3 same. OK, time to look down stream for the ( :evillol ) problem. That was easy, the posts on the distributor were coated with a white deposit. :x Time for a new distributor, eh, it's 2 years old. So I put a used set of NGK BPR6ES-11s in, torqued to 20#, cleaned the Dist. posts/rotor with my handy Dremel tool w/wire wheel and the Filthy Beast runs great.

Went to Parts Plus today and they have a distributor cap and rotor in stock - about $30 and $20 respectively. :O ...and the cap looks great! So I ordered the $10 cap and the $8 rotor from the warehouse and they will be in tomorrow. I can compare them myself and decide. I drove straight home and thought I'd ask for opinions...

Question is; is the $50 cap/rotor really worth it and better than the $20 cap/rotor?
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Ryan
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Ryan

I went to a Parts Plus dealer in Grand Rapids, MI and got both the rotor and cap for a total of $15.

I don't see why you'd spend more when this is an economy car.
Edited by Ryan, Sep 30 2010, 02:32 PM.
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mcmancuso
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I got the cheapest thing available, dunno what the difference is supposed to be, maybe less corrosion prone metals?
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Rooy


What material were the posts on the expensive cap? Brass, copper, aluminum? Generally, brass is the best and is found in more expensive caps.
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Bad Bent
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Facetious Educated Donkey

I agree, Ryan, but I live in central Idaho, a 3 hour drive north of Boise, among $2M-$6 million dollar homes on the lake. At least in Newport Beach, Calif. I got a few amenities for living around luxury, that along with with paying more for necessities because of your zip code. :banghead

That's what I'm asking, mcmancuso, what's the material, wall thickness, yada, yada, yada or will it last twice as long. Nice thing is my friends won't BS me with a line of sales talk. :) I'd like to know that the $$$ is worth the product.

Well, Rooy, I looked at the $30 cap and it had a darker and apparently harder material than the cap currently on my car. It was dark and I'd guess the cheaper one on the car (CarQuest) is aluminum.

I'll decide Friday, 2ish, or later depending on traffic delays due to road repair. :banghead Not like Geo parts are flying off the shelf up here. :lol
.
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JellyBeanDriver


I can't believe how much the price of parts have gone up over the years, especially distributor caps and rotors. I remember these things being $6 and $3 respectively for my cars. Sure, my Datsun 200sx with 2 plugs per cylinder, 1 cap and 1 rotor but each had 2 independent circuits being trickier to build justifies a higher price but I think even then it was only $25 for the cap.
Edited by JellyBeanDriver, Sep 30 2010, 08:27 PM.
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Bad Bent
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Facetious Educated Donkey

Well, you search long enough and you come up with www.standardbrand.com/Catalogs-eCatalog which is the manufacturer of the $30 distributor cap I bought today. It turns out that yes, the JH165 contacts are in fact copper and not aluminum and they look like copper. So, I paid the going price and have a great relationship with my parts place. :thumb I see others are selling the same cap but the inside of the towers does not look copper colored. :shake

BTW The link is NOT a buying site. They say "Print out and give this order to your auto parts supplier" so it's a reference catalog to make sure you are getting the right part.

The distributor is heavier by maybe 10% and is therefor less likely to crack in cold weather. My camera does not have a macro feature so pics will be useless but I'll try if someone wants some. At best you will see some build-up on the terminals and some pitting. :-/
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