Leave the stock ignition just add a higher output coil, I run stock with a 60,000 volt coil and .050 gap on the plugs. Smoothed up the idle a little, starts and runs great. To many mishaps with the MSD distributors, how many have heard of the rotor grabbing the cap whipping the wires into a birds nest leaving dead in the water!!!

No, I run a blown 900 HP on mine with a blaster coil, it runs PERFECTLY! Just add a Blaster 3 coil.. $65.00 and you are done...

I have heard a lot of nigthmare stuff about MSD distributors and ignition boxes. I have MSD billet distributors and not ever had that "bird nest" thing happen to me, but when I originally bought my boat I had one engine reverse timing as we increased in RPM...it was very strange. We thought it might have been "cam walk" and we checked for it. We changed the cap and rotor, new plugs, switched ignition boxes, checked the ignition box wiring, etc, and it still did the same thing. We didn't even think that it was the magetic pickup, but the internals were all still pretty rusty. The only thing we didn't do was swap distributors with the better running engine. Using the same MSD billet distributor, we finally installed an MSD crank trigger system and it works flawlessly now---for 7 years. The nice thing is that it's pretty much maintenance free.