Thread: Points- HEI 350 engine?

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My dad just bought a standard run of the mill aftermarket white box HEI distributor, to replace the points distributor. nither 1 of us has ever done this swap, and I know to remove the ballast resistor ( where is that located?? ) and that new plug wires are needed because of the diffrent cap boots. where do we wire the hot lead to, the ign switch? also, what should we re gap the plugs to or should we get new plugs also?

Ignition lead goes to the plus terminal of the distributor, probably want to open the plugs up to 40 or 45. We run 50 gap with the high output coil so I would imagine 40 would be good on a stocker.

Thanks. the guy said the dizzy had a 50 coil, I'd imagine he meant 50,000v coil. he had 1 with the high output coil for $125, my dad paid $100 for his, this was a private vendor at the Syracuse Nationals. We entered his truck this year. lots of pictures I'v got to upload to the net

Matt, the resistor going to your current dist. is probably resistance wire, so you wont see a resistor specifically. Just run a new wire from a switched terminal on you fuse box (only energized when the key is turned on), and run it right to the batt. term. on the new dist. The other term is for a tach. If you leave the resistor wire in there somewhere, make sure you cap or insulate the end very well so it doesnt eventually touch something and short out. The HEI will require a full 12 volts, so that's why you have to run a new wire. .040 gap should work fine for your plugs...and yes, get new plugs, unless the current ones are fairly new. I was thinking of taking the Chevelle out to Syracuse this weekend, but the heat got the best of me. Im not too far from you, I used to work for Fedex and delivered in your area (Catskill and Hudson) John

Thanks. would I be able to run a new wire from the on terminal of the ignition switch? after removing the resistance wire compleatly? How far is Hagaman from Catskill?

yes you could just replace the original wire but its probably part of a harness and be a pain to replace just the 1 wire.... check with a DVOM to see if your current wire is pulling a 12v or not.... not all vehicles had resistor wires

Yep, but like thesals said, check what you have there first. If you dont have a seperate resistor, the resistance wire is usually just a small section just before the distributor. It should look a little different. If you aren't getting a full 12 volts at the distrib. terminal, go back along the wire, past the resistance part of the wire (if you can tell) and check the voltage at that point. If it's 12v there, just cut and splice in a new piece of equal size wire (dont just twist it, solder it) to your new HEI. You just need a full 12 volts at all times for the HEI. Im about 1 hour from you. I live just outside Amsterdam, about a half hour west of Albany. Im down your way frequently for work. (contractor) John

Cool, thanks. I got a wiring diagram off the internet also, that might come in handy for that.

well we just put it in, had it running, we didn't gap the plugs or put the HEI wires on, just pushed the old wires on the HEI posts. made shure the source we took was 12v constant w/ key on. it is a unfused block. well after toying with the timing a little and making a couple "power time" runs, we had it sitting in the driveway with the light on it, and it just quit, and we heard somthing in the distributor go pop. is there anything we can do to troubleshoot this distributor? a new pickup, modual, what should we do. Also, when we had the light on it, timing was all over the place, like it was jumping 5* or better, it would retard, then advance, and go all over. we may be reconverting back to points, good thing we just disconnected the resistor wire and the bypass, would be easy to put back. thanks in advance.

Check to see if the rotor broke or came loose. These have one round and one square hole to line up properly. Also, on the HEI the vacuum advance should be attached to the mechanical advance. If they pop loose, the mechanical advance will wander erratically at idle.

Thanks. we didn't pull the cap back off after it stopped working. hopefully it's this simple.

yeah, i had a similar problem on my HEI converted to ford, but it was because the distributor shaft was two pieces, and apparently it allowed it to jump on the cam gear, it was a simple fix.... i got out the arc and made 2 pieces into 1 piece

well we just fixed the problem. the ignition control modual was faulty. went down and got a new 1. now it runs great and stays right at 6* BTDC.

You should check with distributor manufacture most want a #12 for HEI and your old point wire is probably a #16 which won't give you enough curent

we ran a 12ga wire from another ign on source, it is a small wire panal that is fused through a fuseble link. we checked it for 12v when the key is on and during cranking. the resistor wire and bypass are still there but we taped them up in case we ever find the need to switch back to points.