Hei conversion troubleshooting
Wow really weird, has to be something simple. I can send you another stock setup distrib to try if you want it or a tested four pin from Kem? Was actually leaning toward phasing myself but you just got rid of that and having it on two units is probably near impossible. Joe you hooked up to ported vacuum on the vac advance?
Hey
@Mattax any ideas your the engineer.
No, I have advance hooked up to the full-time vacuum. Should it be on ported? I thought it was good to have that advance coming in at idle.
As far as heat, I think it was just engine heat I was feeling on the HEI coil and module. I just got back from a liquor store run in the car with points on it and the factory dist and coil feel hot, about the same as before. Maybe engine is running on the warm side, its not overheating and runs good, 180degree thermostat and obviously my hand is not calibrated. Also, the bad running condition (with HEI) does not get worse as the engine warms up, it is consistent from cold start.
I actually gapped my points too before putting the dist back on, found they had worn down to 0.05". Set them to 0.013 and the car didn't seem to care one way or the other.
So I really don't know what to do at this point with my 2 electronic distributors, 2 E-core coils, 2 4-pin gm modules, and relay wiring. I want to keep trying, I have to drive this car from KY to TX and back at the end of the month and was really hoping to do it with the improved mileage and parts availability/reliability of HEI. And if I give up and keep the points I will need to put the ballast back in before I burn up my stock coil.
The only 2 items with the HEI I can think of might be a possibility are as follows:
Weak signal from the OEM chrysler distributor. The wires were pretty corroded from age, I cut back from the connector as far as I dared and used a self-soldering splice. Probably not the culprit, but I do wonder. I guess I could keep cutting back wire until I get bright copper but there isn't much to work with before I have ruined a pickup. The other thing that I wonder about is reluctor gap. I tried closer, 0.005" was where the slop in the vac advance plate would allow the contacts to touch if rotor was stationary. I also tried bigger, 0.012" and it seemed to run worse. Last try was around 0.07" and I left it there. No difference really. Reading other threads about HEI they all seemed to indicate reluctor gap isn't particularly critical.
The other thing I wonder about is some sort of ground issue. I tested the module and it grounds to the distributor well without the additional strap I have. So if there is somehow stray voltage to the block (if that is even a thing?) it is absolutely getting to the module. I have run the module ground strap to the dist hold-down bolt, and to a bolt on the intake manifold, shared with the VR ground, no difference.