I purchased this HEI and I believe I am having some issues with it. Power seems a little flat. Tom Langdon had me chance out the vacuum advance to one that opens a 4psi in lieu of the 10psi it was opening at. He also stated If I could give him numbers off the dist. he could give me a ball park on timing because of the curve. There are no markings on the dist. So my question is has anyone had success with this dist and if so did you install, time and go? EBAY CHEVY STRAIGHT 6 CYL HEI DISTRIBUTOR 1941-62 (216/235) 60K Volt Coil from bestvaluehotrod
Looks to me like a procomp dizzy. I bought a similar one off ebay that lead to the early demise of my 65 F100's 460. The shaft snapped. Twice. The first time they replaced it, the second and final time they wouldn't. I would advise anyone to steer clear of those "high performance" dizzy's on ebay. I've bought several over the years and they all seem indentical. I think whoever makes the for procomp in china sells them to a lot of different vendors to rebrand.
I wish I would have man. A rebuild would have meant I would have still had my truck and not had it crap out on me in the middle of a damn two lane bridge! Thing about those shafts is that WHEN they snap you're toast. I had driven my truck about 60 miles before the first one went, no problems. The next day BLAM and it's done for.
I have an original GM HEI that I bought from Langdon's and it worked great in my 250 6 cyl but I don't know if it would work in your engine. It gave me so much power on hills that I was amazed. If it will work, you can have the complete set-up with wires etc. for $75. Sonny
Thanks for the advice and warnings. I will have to save for a langdon HEI. Thanks for the offer CHEVYFORDMAN but I'll have to see if shaving the collar is all I would have to do to it.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=738182 See my comments on this thread about (yes, a Procomp distributor). Never mind the bickering back and forth between me and a few guys. Everybody's opinion is right on here until they've experienced the problem themselves. lol. Good bunch of folks though once our ego's are out of the way.
Very interesting Gomojo. I understand the the reasoning behind the debate. I for one have trouble rationalizing the outcome but I am not discreaditing it. Thank you, I will give it a shot and post the results in a couple weeks.
Let me second the min HEI from Tom Langdon. You can't go wrong with that piece. I put it in my 52 with a 54 235. it's the best upgrade I've ever made to my inline. Dom
I have used Toms mini HEI its great. But in this situation throwing money at an issue isn't the answer until you exhaust all avenues first. Your kinda commited to a direction, I agree call Bubba and confirm any issues
Forgive my ignorance. Who is Bubba? And I am committed to resolving this distributor issue before I buy another one. Principle man! I cannot let an inanimate object get the better of me; that's what wives are for.I did go get a vacuum advance that operates in the 4-6psi range instead of the 6-10 that was on it. I hope that cures it. If not, maybe lighter springs, but then I am trying to blueprint it myself.
Later 250 hei will almost drop in your engine. I did a tech thread on dropping one in. Do a search and save some dough.
I put a procomp hei in my 350 chevy yesterday.The dist had been laying around from another project.When I tried to time the engine the timing light was only flashing occasionally,seemingly at random times. I called one of my drag racing buddies,and He told me to check the air gap on the magnetic pickup.I pulled the dis. and found a huge gap,and the screws were barely finger tight. I closed the gap to maybe.010 or so.I dropped the dis back in and it started on the first crank. I set the timing and she purrs like a kitten,although I am not quite ready to take her out on the road.
There are good coils and cheap counterfeits also, and all the cheapo versions use the junk coils. An original GM coil and module will take all the voltage you can give them. I use #10 guage fusable link at the + altenater post, run the #10 wire to a 30 amp toggle switch in the car (preferably hidden as theft deterrent, then from the switch back to the "Bat" side connector at the dizzy. Now she's getting 14 volts and throwing some real spark. Don't cheap out on the plug wires either, spiral core, the cheapest "good" wires I've found are the Borg Warner 7mm sets at Pep Boys in the $30+ range, and run fine wire extended tip plugs (less total timing advance needed and less resistance to firing the plug)when possible. On a used one (or any dizzy) make sure to lightly lube the moving parts with dialectric grease, and clean out any of the red dust, then the spark will go were its suppose to, instead of cross arching on the red metalic dust under the cap and all inside the dizzy.
Thanks for all th advice I will yank the dizzy and look it over real good.I have good wires but would like something other than autolite 86 on the plugs.
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