From Coil to Combustion: Performance Distributors’ Power Secrets

Intake. Compression. Combustion. Exhaust. That’s how our engines work, time after time after time, God willing and the creek don’t rise. No one step is more important than the other, but let’s never forget that without spark there’s no combustion. Performance Distributors of Memphis, Tennessee, has made its mission to ensure you not only have spark, but lots of it. Whether your engine is naturally aspirated or supercharged, turbo’d or nitrous-injected, having enough spark to light the fire is critical. And more spark can mean a more complete burn of that fuel.

Way back in 1974, Kelly Davis was a police officer — that was his day job; at night, he occasionally worked security for Elvis Presley at Graceland. He was also a serious racer with a Chevy-powered dragster and an expert in recurving distributors, something of a lost art today, but it was a critical part of the performance equation then.

His success in this last department led to him applying for his first business license. Out of the family garage, he started a company that modified ignitions. Thus was born Performance Distributors. Business — mostly recurving factory distributors with breaker points — was good. 

A year later, GM introduced the High Energy Ignition (HEI) distributor. It was fully electronic, required virtually no upkeep, and the coil was in the cap. No more bouncing or closing points to worry about, and it greaty reduced routine maintenance. It worked extremely well on the low rpm smog motors the General was producing. Even the L82 in the Corvette 350 was not much of a revver. Kelly saw a lot of potential in the HEI distributor. Its issue from a performance standpoint was that it was all done after 5,500 rpm, which is bad for most high-performance applications. 

Performance Distributors offers ignition systems and parts for everything from traditional V-8 engines of all brands from 1955 to present to kits for six cylinder AMCs, Jeeps, Dodge Vipers, and four- and six-cylinder domestic applications.

That’s when Kelly took the whole thing back to square one and designed the world’s first high-performance HEI distributor, the Davis United Ignition. Business boomed and it wasn’t long before more products followed. Today, Performance Distributors is run by Kelly’s son, Steve. Never ready to rest on past glories, Steve added ignition coils, wires and coil packs for modern distributorless ignition systems (among other things). The original DUI distributors — all its products, actually — are available for all makes and models of cars.

Ignition Upgrades From Old To New

Performance Distributors offers ignition systems and parts for everything from traditional V-8 engines of all brands from 1955 to present to kits for six cylinder AMCs, Jeeps, Dodge Vipers, and four- and six-cylinder domestic applications. Even unusual applications like the Mopar Slant Six and Buick Straight Eight have received attention. 

Want proof of their effectiveness? When sister website LSXMag.com did a back-to-back chassis dyno test on a Cadillac CTS-V, the Sultans of Spark coils added 26.4 horsepower and 24.1 lb.-ft. of torque over stock. That is real-world performance you can feel.

All of Performance Distributors products are still engineered and tested at its shop/business offices in Memphis, and they add both power and reliability to your hot rods, just like they did in 1974. One of the bonuses of the resulting extra spark power is added horsepower. It also allows you to open the gap in your spark plugs, which can add a few more ponies, as well as smooth out your idle.

Over the last quarter century, we’ve dyno- and strip-tested Performance Distributors’ products on multiple hot rods and they always shown improvements in both areas. The company offers unique parts and solutions for virtually every ignition system, both vintage and modern.