HEI Advance questions

1982 SS · Jun 30, 2005

I have a stock HEI in a 383 powered El Camino.

The problem I have is this, I can only get about 12-14 degrees of advance mechanically, which gives me a total of about 24 degrees total mechanical advance with 12 initial. As far as I can tell, the only way I can get more advance is to shave some material off the center piece between the weights.

I have a Proform HEI tune-up kit to replace the old ( really old ) parts. It comes with a new cap, rotor, coil, module, weights and springs, and an adjustable vacuum advance. I'm not sure the new weights are going to get me to the 36 degrees that I am looking to get out of it

One other problem I am having, is that I have the vacuum advance hooked to a ported source and I have over 30 degrees advance at idle. I am assuming that ported is what I want. I have hooked a vacuum guage to ports on the carb and I picked the port that has the least vacuum at idle and still remains ported. Am I correct in doing this? I do have the adjustable vacuum advance to help with that. And as far as I can tell, there will be no vacum advance at WOT, right?.

Thanks in advance for your help.

gawdzilla · Jul 1, 2005

are you sure you have the weights put on the right way for your rotation? check it against the diagram in your kit- the wrong way won't give you the right characteristics.

1982 SS · Jul 1, 2005

I had the cap off when I swapped out the old computer driven distributor. I made sure it was in fine working order when I had it on the bench. I had it on ditributor machine (didn't give a readout, it just spun) and I proved the mechanical weights spun out properly. Good idea though.

I have not installed the kit I mentioned in my first post yet, just listed it in case it would help making any decisions.

HEI Advance questions

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