Don, if you look back in the Stage II forum archives this has been discussed several times. First, using the distributor makes it easy to get a two-step function compared to the stock ignition module which won't resync reliably after a cylinder is dropped. Second, having a second "waste" gap in the distributor cap is not all that different from a second spark plug so I don't think the voltage requirement is very different (I don't know what the rotor to cap spacing is and what that firing voltage is at underhood temperature and atmospheric pressure compared to a spark plug gap in the hot exhaust gas 20-40 psig environment in the chamber when the waste spark fires but having done some spark discharge experiments at different pressures and gaps in the lab my gut says not more than maybe 3-5 kV different tops). Third, there is a lot of belief and some evidence that getting rid of the waste spark event makes more power. Several guys have reported gains of 40-80 hp on 1000+ hp engines on the dyno when going from a stock setup to the distributor. Some of that is probably getting a hotter spark but maybe not all. Jason Cramer has a dual module dual coilpack setup on his tsm car that allows him to emulate a waste spark setup by firing both spark plugs, using separate coils for each plug, or to just fire one plug with one coil, so the plug that is firing a cylinder always gets full power from its own coil, and he has reported a noticieable gain without the waste spark. Fuzzy memory says maybe 10-30 hp on a 750+hp motor (9.90 at 3500 lbs is 710 rwhp on average). There are some theories in the archives here but I don't know if anyone has scientifically proven a reason for this. Lastly, in the stock ecm for sure all the cam sync signal does is identify which cylinder to fire next but all the timing is done from the crank sensor, and obviously in the old bank-to-bank classic FAST boxes this is true since they didn't use a cam sensor.
[Okay, see above post for the difference Jason saw . And he only used one module but two coilpacks. Darn slow typing . Oh, another option is the COP setup a couple of vendors are developing.]
[Okay, see above post for the difference Jason saw . And he only used one module but two coilpacks. Darn slow typing . Oh, another option is the COP setup a couple of vendors are developing.]