[Skip Fix]

I'll pull the old orignal(and still old!) points distributor out of my 65 GTO and see what it does

[Sun Tuned]

Skip if they said check ohms between green and white pickup coil wires…. I’m quite sure they meant 900 ohms.

Myself I cut em back to anything between 760 -850 and they better be steady cold and hot.

You might try one last thing… remove the pickup coil leads from module and twist them together 2-3 turns. A twisted pair. Will help alleviate stray EMI but it not a fix all all the time.

They’ll fix it if you send it back or I’m sure I can. Lemme look sometime.

[Skip Fix]

Thanks. Yea I did see the extra 0 now that you mention it at 900!

[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by Sun Tuned

Definitely put a voltmeter on that 12v feed wire and see what’s going on there, at key on, start, and while it’s idling.

Easy enough to pull coil cover and then you can get right at it without issue.

The original feed wire from GM was a strange deal. It was about between a 12 and a 14 gauge wire conductor with an over size large diameter of insulation. With using up to date modern type wire a 12 gauge wire is quite sufficient.

I’ve seen all kinds of goofy stuff done with the feed wire going to these HEI distributors on cars.

Too small gauge wire for sure won’t have the current carrying capacity it needs. Most HEis will only draw about 1.2-1.7 amps(Stock) the coils used in the DUI will only draw about 1-1.2 amps more than stock, so a total of 2-3 amps total at most.

My all time favorite deal to see on cars is where they pulled a points distributor and found a 12v keyed source to run the HEI that’s hot in the start AND run position and then run the distributor off that. At that point that’s a good deal…but then they pull the old carb and upgrade to one with an electric choke and then find theres not much places to find a choke power wire …so they T into the one powering the distributor.

I don’t like that.

Second favorite boo boo is where they try to power the choke off the positive side of a canister type ignition coil…
Yeah it’ll work, but not the most ideal situation at all.

So Bob, when you re-build a 4 pin HEI distributor for a customer, that needs a new module, what do you use???

I remember a couple of years ago you were helping a friend with a crate engine install in a 56Chevy?

Seems like the engine wouldn't run right, you found the 4 pin module to be at fault. you tried modules from different part stores, but none performed properly... I'm not sure you mentioned the solution to this???
THanks
Jeff

[Sun Tuned]

Jeff,
That was a few years ago. Good memory!

That was a brand new GM crate 350. I had bought modules from autozone(Wells), Oreilleys (Standard), and Napa (Echlin). All were sub par.all suffered same symptoms.
It wasn’t until about 3 weeks later that I found out why.
Standard had apparently bought everybody else out and as I was told we’re operating under the same umbrella of buying power.

Well it don’t take a finance major to figure that one out. They gonna use the lowest bid.


In the year and a half that followed, I watched about 8 bought for customers cars and with 0 exceptions all 8 were returned . That was enough for me on the 4 I bought one Saturday previously to figure that deal out.

So I went and bought 12 Dyna Mods from Perf. Dist. I think I got 1 left. When I get back over there I’ll likely do it again. If I have an issue, I can get it resolved without any hassle.
So far I’ve not had any. Now a couple guys at work recently have used the modules Oreilleys sell (Standard) with no issue yet. So maybe they’ve identified that problem and corrected it. Not sure.

I’ll just put it this way. I’ve got a stash of about 6 GM modules from 1995 the ones made in Singapore, those I got put back for stuff I own. Those will do me fine. And I swear to you guys, I won’t mess with stuff too long, I’ll yank it if it’s problematic and I will put a worked cast iron single or dual point distributor right where that HEI was sitting in a heartbeat and not lose one second of sleep over it or about it.

I remember back in the early 90’s when everyone was talking about em coming for our cars… nah, but it’s hard to drive it if you don’t have parts. Parts is where it’s gonna get ya. And sorry quality parts will put the worst taste I. Your mouth you ever had.

We’ve had several customers at work come in and want the new fuel injection some other shops have installed a couple years ago took off the car and regular old stuff that actually works put back in its place. I love that! It’s a sad waste though, but you can’t argue with the result. I mean I hate they paid all that $$ for what’ originally was supposed to be a better mousetrap, but it rarely works out that way. I mean if you’re gonna let gas go stale it’s gonna wreck the internals of a carb, but guess what? It’s gonna do same to EFI also….

I don’t know what the problem is exactly on these modules, or really if there actually is one here in the original post, but I’m sure it’ll shake itself out eventually. And when and if we do we just have to figure out a plan B.

[Skip Fix]

He got the squirter system flushed and new hot wire measures 12.7 so will try and see what the timing is doing this weekend.

[Skip Fix]

New hot wire larger gauge and a correct pigtail got it pretty normal, different timing light did the trick also. Not sure what the deal was with original distributor and Lee's hook up but seems to advance "normal" now.

[Sun Tuned]

Well done Skip!!

Thank you for the update. Glad it was something simple.

[Skip Fix]

Me too!