Got a link or part number, so we can see if it is the same low price aftermarket performance HEI being sold all over by various vendors and parts houses under different brand names??

 

Check the base plate and see if any Maker's Marks are there. Most of the cheap China Made will have nothing, and the module also will be just blank black plastic/epoxy. Check the spade connectors as most the cheap ones will fall apart if you try to remove them from the module.


Check end play and rotate the shaft with the rotor removed, the cheap crappy ones will not move smooth and as the points move around to the reluctor ring points the distances will not be consistent. Some of the points will actually collide, and if this happens its not going to fire correctly.


I am running one on a show truck, I had to replace the junk module with a good ($40.00) unit but its still kicking ok.


I had another one traded to me about a year ago and that one went in the trash.


I try to stay with name brand, but avoid Accel units, I have used the Ford and Chevy units, and Have a Chrysler Unit form Summit enroute.


Some of the cheap eBay units flooded the market a few years ago and a new HEI for 29.99 is a little unbelievable. Some of the hucksters got wise and raised prices to reflect $80 to $120 range, and many unsuspecting DIY's and builders thought they were getting better because of the higher price.


Its just a buyer beware deal.

 

Also Speedway is a good vendor, I've built several projects with their parts and I do like their prices.


Never had any issues with returns with Speedway, but don't recall ever having to make any. Had a couple times with needing their tech support and was positive experience.

 

I'm no Accel fan, as far as spark plugs and plug wires, and HEI Super Coilsrolleyes....but I've used 3 Accel BluePrint HEI's, and friends and family have used another 3 or 4, with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Well built, good mechanicals, good ignition curve and comes with several curve spring sets and an adjustable vacuum advance can. I've still got one new in the box awaiting the next vehicle I build.

With that said, the Accel bashing on their other parts can re-commence

 

Speedway says it's "blueprinted". Blueprinted to what, is anybody's guess.

LOL!

Hope it's not blueprinted to any of the GM HEIs with vacuum canisters that advance the timing by 20+ degrees. But of course they made up for that with very little initial and mechanical advance. Just what you need to reduce emissions, but terrible for full throttle performance.

Of course you can always limit vac advance with a stop plate, and increase mech advance with a lighter spring or two. Then you'd have a decent advance curve.

 

I did a google search and the speedway hei distributors look like the skip white ones from ebay which I have used before and always had excellent luck with them and I have also bought the summit brand $89 hei distributors which I am currently running in my sbc for three years and still going strong. I have used about four or so of the skip white ebay ones and they seem to all be the same minus the skip white ones having a polished shaft compared to the summit boxed ones.

 

Usually it's the module that craps out on these so you get an MSD 4 pin module and with a screw driver keep it in a sandwich bag in the glove box. If and when the import module craps out you just swap it and keep on truckin'. Figure 80 bucks for the distributor and 40 bucks for the module you now have a 120 bucks into what is otherwise a 280 buck distributor. you can buy a few 6 packs of Tsingtao beer for the difference.

Bogie

 

Thanks for the replies all. I took it somewhat apart for a closer look and it appears to be decently made. Has brass posts and all. But no markings on the module. Spins smooth as silk. Has an adjustable vacuum can. Stuck some feeler gauges between the drive gear washer and the bottom of the casting and came up with .035". That good or bad?

 

You should be fine with that one, plus Speedway is good to work with.


Also O'Reilly's and CARQUEST have the machine that can check the module if ever need be. Not sure about NAPA or AutoZone.

 

It's this one right here. Fifty bucks: https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Spee...BRBmEiwAAkFF1imDmVruHqLWO5P8J5KnZPFaHdLTwrugQ2xWUGZfMonSGbRjMFBhpRoCwlAQAvD_BwE

 

Call me crazy, but I've used only GM and MSD distributors in my cars and my friends' cars cars since 1995. Never carried a spare part, and never had a single problem.

Next time I'm in the market, I'll probably buy this GM Performance distributor from Proform:

HEI Distributor; 50,000 Volt Built-In Coil; Black Cap; For Chevy V8 Crate Engine | #141-682 | Proform Parts

It also comes in red, blue, and tan.

Although made overseas, I've always had good luck with Proform parts and found them a few cuts above your typical imports.

 

The reviews are pretty good from Speedway buyers. One of those things that it will crap out early on if you get a bad one.


I have a small-body HEI on my car since the engine is tight to the firewall. An eBay $125 special, came with wires, cap and coil. I even swapped out the cap and coil for no extra charge, got some better suited for my needs.


I do get a little nervous about it, but at 6000 miles it works great.

 

The main feature of electronic ignitions is the broad power range compared to a point type ignition. In other words, there is no dwell time (coil saturation) to be concerned with. The coil has just as much coil saturation time in degrees of crank rotation at 7,000 RPM as it has at idle speed. Electronic ignitions also provide a stronger spark that is required to fire high compression ratios. If your car can pass state emissions tests, you don't need a high energy ignition system.

Electronic ignitions were first introduced by automakers in order to fire the lean fuel-air mixtures mandated by the 1970 EPA Clean Air Act.

I have found it difficult to beat a PerTronix Stock Look distributor and a stock GM coil with a external resistor.

 

If you can get .015" minimum between the gear and housing that is perfect. You need that much thrust for oil clearance. If you don't allow oil clearance, the thrust of the shaft will render the thinner distributor shaft shims into chips. A new stock point type distributor had as much as .025"-.028" oil clearance.

I recently checked a new electronic distributor I purchased that was marketed by Skip White and it had .020" thrust clearance so I left it alone.

 

Drill a .020" hole in the distributor housing oil band. That will supply pressurized oil flow to the distributor shaft inside the housing and to the distributor gear. The Skip White distributor housings already has that oil hole.

I also file a .030" deep groove with the edge of a flat-bastard file in the lower half of the aluminum distributor housing oil band. That supplies more oil to the distributor gear/cam gear. We did that in the late 1960s with a steel billet roller cam and bronze distributor gear in our Junior Fuel dragster. We could go a full season without replacing the camshaft due to a worn gear.

 

Drill a .020" hole in the distributor housing oil band. That will supply pressurized oil flow to the distributor shaft inside the housing and to the distributor gear. The Skip White distributor housings already has that oil hole.

I also file a .030" deep groove with the edge of a flat-bastard file in the lower half of the aluminum distributor housing oil band. That supplies more oil to the distributor gear/cam gear.

Any pics???

 

Man, you guys are awesome. Now this is what I call hotrodding!
I wish I'd heard about the Skip White dizzy before I bought this one.
So the plan for this morning is to drill that hole in between the bosses, measure the shaft diameter and call the auto parts store for some drive gear shims and some of those nylon shims that go up by the gasket.
So, for the oil groove, I want to try to orient it so the oil trickles down onto the gear just before where the gears mesh? Yeah, I'll figure that out when I establish exactly where my timing is at.
THANKS!

 

The Camshaft Story
Be careful when you drill the hole in the oil band. I would remove the gear and distributor shaft to do that because if the shaft is not removed, you can damage the shaft with the drill bit and leave a burr in the housing. It would be best to drill the hole using a drill press after you remove the distributor shaft to shim the cam driven gear, then is when you need to drill the hole in the oil band.

The groove filed in the oil band will allow "pressurized" oil to flow to the distributor gear. Yes, you should locate the groove over the gear in a location it will still oil the gears after the timing is set. When you turn the distributor to adjust the timing, you will also move the groove. This is necessary only if you have changed to radical camshafts and a higher RPM potential. Street driven cars with radical camshafts and engines in circle track cars love these modifications.

The distributor / cam gear "lash" should also be checked. Shims are available to place between the distributor collar and the block. A distributor driven gear that does not mesh properly with the cam drive gear can ruin the gears. That may be found after you machine Chevy China walls or intake manifold to better fit milled blocks and/or heads.

A sacrificial bronze distributor gear is usually used with steel billet camshafts. It is better to lose a distributor gear rather than the cam gear and the cam. Steel billet cams are used with radical, high lift roller cams because the shaft between the cam lobes is machined smaller with Hil lift cam lobes in order to increase the strength of the cam. A cast iron cam woul break if it was a high lift roller cam with bone crushing valve spring pressure. Camshafts with more than .580" valve lift should be made of billet steel.

We learned that with a SB Chevy 355 CI NHRA Junior Fuel (C/FD) dragster in the late sixties with Enderle fuel injection. Junior Fuel was limited to was limited to 355 CI and fuel injection. We used various steel billet roller camshafts and rev-kits. Curiously, the best ET was 7.47 seconds using a Howard's flat tappet camshaft at NHRA sanctioned drag strip at Victoria Texas. The drag strip was only 50' above sea level with good, dense air.

 

Hei

I started buying Skip White HEI's. They seem to be quality at a reasonable price. They make them for older engines, Got one for my 455 Buick. One for a Jeep 258 six. They work good.

Just bought two SBC/BBC Dizzy's from Skip White and they seem fine.

In the 90's I bought a Summit HEI and it still works today, no issues. I think the Summit ones were direct from GM.

Has anyone used the SMALL CAP HEI and were they reliable? Thinking about getting one where firewall clearance is an issue. .

 

Well, I ended up using a shim from my old distributor, and ended up with a tight .009" gap between the drive gear and the bottom of the housing. MUCH better than .035". I also drilled the hole and grooved the bottom collar. I drilled the hole towards the top of the groove to make sure the oil squirts the shaft above the lower bushing. Also took a few thousanths off the bottom end of the shaft just in case.

 

If you have milled heads or decked block, you may need nylon distributor to block shims to prevent binding of the oil pump driveshaft. Those are Moroso 26150, three nylon shims .030", .060", .100" thick. Fits between the distributor collar and block.

The distributor housing to gear shim kit is Moroso 26140. They are steel shims and consist of 2-.010", 2-.020", 1-.053" shims for a 1/2" distributor shaft. Fits between the distributor housing and the distributor gear.

 

I have two of these distributors, one for a SBF and the other for a SBC.

The centrifugal advance mechanism on both was all in by 2000 rpm or so, it needs an HEI spring and weight kit to fix it. Once you do that its fine, I used the weights and silver springs to have all centrifugal in by 3000 rpm or so.

The supplied weights are very heavy, I may try the stock weight cam again to see how it affects ramp up off idle just to see if there is an advantage there.

 

Skip White markets TSP (Top Street Performance) Ready to Run ignitions . TSP is a company in California and imports products from China. That is why they are excellent quality products. That is because the Chinese will make any quality level product a American company is willing to pay for. MSD markets TSP distributorrs under their MSD name.

I purchased a Skip White TSP Ready To Run distributor for a 1991 Chevrolet 4.3L V6 and it arrived in a TSP box. It is excellent product and it had only .020" thrust clearance between the gear and housing.

 

Milling the block and/or heads doesn't move the intake down.
Basic geometry tell this.

 

Sorry, I failed to include that milling the block and/or heads also requires that the ends of the intake manifold must also be milled to match the intake manifold and head bolt holes and ports. Milling the ends of the intake manifold To match the milled heads will drop the distributor towards the camshaft by the amount milled off the ends of the intake manifold. The Moroso 26150 distributor collar shims will correct the height of the distributor,and prevent binding of the intermediate shaft.

I have never had SB Chevy heads or block resurfaced more than .007" and the intake manifold fit and the distributor fit OK.

 

Ok, what's the deal here? I stab the thing in there, put the cap and wires on, go to turn the cap clamps and I notice some lateral movement. Well I've never noticed that before. So I yank it out and do some measuring. The hole in the manifold cks at 1.450" and the mating land in the the dist housing is 1.271". But then I checked the land on the original dist and it's pretty close to the same size as the new dist. Must not be an issue
So then I checked the two lands on the bottom that intersect the block oil gallery.
The new dist cks at 1.271" compared to 1.279" on the old one. So an .008" larger clearance there could translate to a significant amount of lateral movement at the top. Is this going to affect the timing or cause spark scatter? Chew my cam gear up? I'm also wondering how much this along with the mods will affect my oil pressure.
And as a side question: On the old points dizzy, what is that middle ring for in the middle part of the shaft housing?

 

No worries with any of it.
The .008 will tighten up with the temp. The clamp will hold it.

You can always machine it for an Oring I’d you really wanted too but it’s fine.

 

That middle ring on the distributor is a remnant from pre-68 engines, they had a distributor hole casting in the block that went clear up to the same height as the rear china wall of the lifter valley.

 

Well it acts like it wants to fire, but it won't. I've triple checked everything from the #1 TDC on the comp stroke position to each plug wire's location on both ends. Everything is where it should be. The ign wire isn't resistance wire, just regular 14ga wire. Seems to fire once or twice with each rotation. Starting to wonder if maybe I'm just not getting enough voltage through the primary circuit to the coil during cranking. I'm actually using the wiring harness from a 72 Chevy pickup. Maybe I need to stick a relay straight from the battery to the coil primary and power it with the original ign wire.
Or maybe this distributor is just a POS.
Was running just fine with the old points dist.
Might just stick it back in.
Any ideas?