[bobcowan]

If you're making that much power on pump fuel, the engine is "radical" enough that accurate timing is the way to go. I found that I make more power with less timing at the top end than at the middle. And, if you drive on the street, it's a good idea to back off the timing a little bit under a significant load, and add timing under a light load.

For a few years there have been a couple ignition only ECU's on the market, Like Haltech and Megajolt Jr. These systems are really trick, using a computer to control all aspects of the ignition events, and use either a COP of coil pack. Essentially eliminating the distributer from the equation.

There are quite a few ECU's that will control both fuel and ignition, if the engine is EFI.

I have heard good things about the Crane distributer, which combines the ECU and distributer in one package. Not as good as a crank trigger. But cheaper and easier to set up.

Boxes like MDS 6AL don't control the ignition event at all. Their goal is to band -aid the problems of using a single coil to fire all 8 cylinders at high rpm's. MSD does make a retard box, but that just retards timing across the board based on boost or some other trigger.

The timing is based on movement of the distributer. Which is based on movement on the cam shaft. Which comes from yad, yada, yada. You get the picture.

A crank trigger gets the signal directly from the crank shaft itself. No intermediate steps, no scatter, no slop, no changing. Dead on accurate under all conditions.