I was thinking of doing some work to my 97 360 motor. I was thinking of going with a new msd distributor kit, with cap and all already put together but they aren't cheap. Would it be worth it or would I be just as good off if I went with a new performance cap, rotor, and wires? Or will the msd make that much of a difference?

 

Won't make any difference at all. Just get a good brass terminal cap, and matching rotor. Good, quality wire set, and some good spark plugs. (I am not a fan of champions.) Use copper plugs. Our engines don't particularly care for the rare-earth plugs. (platinum, Iridium, etc.)

 

There are ways to get some more performance out of the stock ignition system.
First get a good cap and rotor, make sure the cap has brass terminals. A good quality set of plug wires will help a lot. Get a set of Autolite 3923 spark plugs, they are an improvement over the stock plugs. Then get an MSD Blaster coil #8228 ( you may need to get the coil plug adaptor), and then gap the plugs to .045 and install them.
Don`t run the larger plug gap with out replacing the stock coil.


You should notice an improvement in performance, and possibly a little better gas mileage.