Hi Uncle,

I've seen most of the 83 and 84 configurations, and devised myself a pocket tester for the Hall-effect distributors to help me find good ones in the yards. Best I can tell, the distributors, if they're Bosch, are all the same functionally - that is, if you can wire them into your harness, the 83-88 cars will provide you with a good one.

The problem is making an adapter to the round plug. You won't find anything to fit that rectangular one for the Bosch except in the junkyard, and the 85-88 harnesses for ignition are not the same as the 83-84. So, if you don't care for wiring kludges (and who does when they're under the hood) you'd need to replace the whole doggone harness back to the V/C controller on the washer bottle.

But, if you can tolerate an adapter cable, cut off the round one and its pigtail from the defective Bosch or Chrysler distributor and marry it with just the rectangular end from an ignition cable plucked from any 84-88. That saves you from having to pry the whole harness from under the crank, and chase the orange and gray leads running under the intake manifold.

Either approach is less work than rewiring under the dash for LH2.2, which, no matter how you approach it, would be a kludge with a capital K. Yes, the AMM and ECU are more robust on 2.2, and if that's truly a factor for you, then run with it.

Tell me why else you think an 85-88 distributor would not work in your 83?
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.