[Cliff R]

I just had a new aftermarket HEI in here last week.

At a glance it looked like a nice unit, especially the housing, very well made and had almost a "billet" look to it. As I got into the job I started finding a few issues. The center cam and weights appeared to be exact copies of factory stuff, and hardened, but they didn't have the correct orientation and "flats" to stop the advance curve. It just kept advancing past where a factory unit would have stopped mostly because of the relationship of the parts and "low" tension of the springs. Welding in a positive stop cured that issue.

The VA was adjustable for how much it added vs the spring tension, good deal there and it had a relatively light spring in it, starting around 5" and all in around 10" vacuum so it was a decent candidate for the got-to-have MVA at idle guys and none of it dropping out if your engine makes at least 10" vacuum in and out of gear..

The main shaft was "soft" and I could easily scratch it with my pocket knife. Even worse they machined the oil pump drive "slot" so far up it intersected the hole drilled for the roll pin making it pretty "weak" in that area.

The gear looked pretty good, not that dark black imported material we typically see used for them. It was some sort of cast material, dark gray in color and reasonably hard although there is no real way that I know of to gauge the durability of a cast part without putting it in service and see if it is compatible with the cam and hard enough it doesn't wear out, and not so hard that it wears out the gear on the cam. It was set up super-tight for end play with one very thin shim on it.

The electronic parts looked totally "generic" and no marks on them anyplace.

The retainer for the pick-up came off when I pulled the shaft so someone forgot to seat it fully into the groove.

It use oil for lubricant on ALL of the parts instead of grease, so not sure how well that would have worked in the long haul?

I'm still all-in for using factory Pontiac HEI's vs any of this "off-shore" stuff. Problem is that it is becoming a bit difficult to find good cores. At least 50 percent at this point will have a worn lower bushing and scored/worn shaft at that area. Nearly that many will have worn weight holes and the pins often worn nearly in half.

My stock is running extremely low and probably a good thing I don't do a lot of them these days and don't really want to.

In contrast the points distributors I have or get in are almost always in decent shape and rebuildable. They require a new advance sleeve (I use a stainless steel one) as the rubber one is long gone, and the parts are usually rusty enough we have to zinc plate them. Otherwise not much is needed beyond a good cleaning and checking/setting up the advance curve for where it is headed.......Cliff