HEI Mod

J

Jeepster 22 years ago

Hey folks I went out to the local wreckers today and found an HEI distributor from an 83 GMC Van (250 ci straight six) I had taken the donor list with me so I was pretty sure I had found the right part. Donor list >>>

formatting link

This evening I started reading a bunch of stuff on the mod and I found this:

"Start the search for an HEI from vehicles of the years 76-82 with the GM 250. These distributors were most common in the Chevy Nova, vans and trucks. You will be looking for the HEI with the coil built into the cap. The proper HEI will already have 3 wires coming from the distributor body that plug into the coil on top of the cap. Note: It is likely that an HEI from 1976-1977 will have remote mounted coils. These units will work just as well as the others."

One of the other pages I read said that anything after 1982 would not work because GM had started to go with electronic ignitions at this time.

I hope I have the right part as I went ahead and ordered the proper gear today which cost me an arm and a leg....considering I got the distributor for $19 Cdn.

The one I found sure looks like this one >>

formatting link

Vote

J

JimG 22 years ago

Is that a performance mod or just a convenience thing? I haven't found that answer in the articles.

I noticed where one fellow modified the OEM gear to fit the GM shaft.

formatting link

-- JimG

80' CJ-7 258 CID 35" BFG MT on 15x10 Centerlines D44 Rear, Dana 30 Front. SOA 4.56 Gears, LockRight F&R Dana 300 w/4:1 & Currie twin sticks Warn X8000i w/ dual batteries

Vote

S

Steve Cook 22 years ago

Vote

J

Jeepster 22 years ago

Yes he says he ground it down but I went and got a gear from a AMC 360 engine, which was the most expensive part of the project.

Wrecker distributor: $21 AMC Distributor gear $120 (ouch but I had no choice) Various connectors and 10 gauge wire $10

12 V / 20 Amp relay $14

I had a hell of a time gett>Is that a performance mod or just a convenience thing? I haven't found that

Vote

J

Jeepster 22 years ago

Vote

J

johnny 22 years ago

or you can just run a hidden switch to ground the HEI tach wire. this will prevent syarting. john

Vote

M

Mike Romain 22 years ago

Were you buying 'Wells' ignition modules?

I have see two of those suckers bad right out of the box and others that wear out really fast.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

Steve Cook wrote:

Vote

T

TJim 22 years ago

Ouch. You could have done the TFI upgrade for quite a bit less.

formatting link

put it on my AMC 360 and it made a big difference in the way the engineran. I've seen it done on v8s and I6s (obviously with different distributorcaps) and it works great. I don't like the Accel wires, though. I'dsuggest using the OEM ford wire set.

Vote

J

Jeepster 22 years ago

I considered going the TFI route but in the end the GM HEI was easier to find....so I thought. I never thought it would be hard to find that gear and I never dreamed it would cost as much as it did. I went to Napa and the various other parts places none had the gear available so at this point I said F..IT and went to the Dodge dealership and ordered the part.

I'm very happy with the results but I have to go back and pull the distributor and sp>Ouch. You could have done the TFI upgrade for quite a bit less.

Vote

T

TJim 22 years ago

Sounds like you thought it out pretty well. Sounds like it went fairly well, too. Sorry about the price of the gear! Wow! It's amazing how much difference a decent ignition system makes, isn't it. With the HEI, do you get to remove the Ignition Control Module? (did you have one?)

Vote

J

Jeepster 22 years ago

Yes the ignition module is totally out of the picture now, but it so well hidden I won't bother to remove it. I just tucked what wires I could into the wire wraps and tied back the others.

The ignition is a simple circuit now. Old feed to coil to 12 volt relay

10 ga wire to relay from battery 10 ga wire from relay to new >Sounds like you thought it out pretty well. Sounds like it went fairly

Vote

HEI Mod

Join the Discussion

Didn't find your answer?