Need advice: HEI distributor?

[Ristow]

i bought 2 skip white HEI off ebay for,as i recall,79.99 each. i put an oem gear on the clear cap one,and it ran fine for as long as i ran that engine. the red cap unit had the roll pin drilled in a different location so an oem gear would not fit. that unit was a pos. i could tell by looking at them both they were from different suppliers,if not the same manufacturer.


as stated above,these are all chinese junk. no matter how "some body else" tries to justify their asinine price with their assurances of being assembled here or tested on their "machine"....


its a crap shoot.

[babywag]

Just get a good Duraspark reman, or used.
They last forever, you can replace the bushing in housing if it's a little loose.
Way too many stories of crap HEI's gone wrong...you couldn't pay me to run one.
I'd try an MSD 8519 clone before any HEI.

Your engine, $$$, and time though, if you want to roll the dice feel free.

[440sixpack]

It's just personal preference. Put an MSD gear, OEM Delco 4 wire D1906 module and coil on the HEI and for all intensive purposes you have the same fine ignition GM ran for years.


With the Durashart you can do whatever you want and you still have a trouble prone ho hum ignition.

To each their own.

[babywag]

It's just personal preference. Put an MSD gear, OEM Delco 4 wire D1906 module and coil on the HEI and for all intensive purposes you have the same fine ignition GM ran for years.


With the HEI you can do whatever you want and you still have a trouble prone ho hum ignition.

To each their own.

lol fixed that for ya
AC Delco quality is a crap shoot today, it?s all offshore now.
It isn?t the same stuff anymore.
I have yet to see anyone on here brag about an HEI lasting 100k, 200k, or be problem free.
Both mine had oem duracrap distributor & module, both well over 100k...show me anybody on here that?ll say same about a GM HEI.

[letank]

The problem with the HEI is that the coil is very difficult to waterproof, lookat one of my links about engine in my signature.
as said I think the Duraspark is a good unit and as usual try to find out what is wrong with your unit and fix it.

[440sixpack]

The new stuff you buy for the durashart is made overseas as well. so it's just a matter of is it Hopsing making Delco or his brother making Motorcraft.


That's just the world we live in like it or not.

[gpcl16]

For what its worth, I've been running a DUI HEI for 4.5 years and 15k miles with no issues. My switch was to HEI was brought on by my ignition wiring harness being completely destroyed and not wanting to deal with it though. The 1-wire thing is nice for that. I had duraspark systems in Fords that worked quite well and never had issues so I can't knock the Duraspark at all.

Not knowing any better at the time, I used the cam gear that came with the DUI distributor. No issues whatsoever with cam gear wear. I had the timing cover off recently for other reasons and checked it it was just fine. I guess either I got lucky or DUI just makes their gears correctly and out of the correct metal?

[KnoxvilleWag]

That's a good word. Is there any downside to using the old original gear? I've never done that with any other make/model car that I've replaced the distributor on. But interesting that Summit's website says AMC engines need to replace the cam gear with a new one (on the cam, not the one on the distributor).

[rang-a-stang]

...The timing has been a little rough...

What do you mean by that? Do you mean timing is not consistent (bouncing around)? Do you mean you can't find a good timing setting?

They replaced the timing chain in the rebuild, right? Did they use new gears for both the cam and the dizzy? Did they line bore the block?

If your block was line bored, it can slightly shorten the distance between the cam/crank and cause a little slop in the timing chain. If they didn't replace the chain, there's some more slop. If they didn't replace both timing gears (Dizzy/cam) there's some more slop. So add all those up and timing can be rough (bouncing around). Add one or two of them and timing can be a little rough.

Did they degree the cam? If not, it might be off and make it hard to find a good timing setting.

[babywag]

Again, you really wanna go down this road?

http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=166631

Get a decent module, and just run a duraspark distributor.
Or get an msd 8519 or clone & msd module(or similar)

All AMC HEI are china made, you may get lucky, but odds aren?t in your favor.
Why take the chance?

[rang-a-stang]

I'm with babywag on this...

[kansasboy001]

apparently BJ's added the "made in the USA" to help move a few distributiors? sad.
"

This is not the only thing bjs lies about the country of origin. Their mechanical fuel pumps are actually from South Korea.

[440sixpack]

Good grief. it's the exact same distributor GM has used reliably for years. but put it in an AMC and black magic and hindu voodoo sets in and suddenly it's a POS. I guess that's what makes forums stay alive.


As far as the legitimate question about the gear, yes they recommend you change the cam gear for the HEI. just because it's standard practice to not run a new gear against a worn gear . being HEI has nothing to do with it.


I really don't think it's that big of deal , but if you're worried about it put your old gear on the new distributor if it's good. I put MSD gears on both ends but I was rebuilding my engine at the time so it was easy.

[Woodchomper]

If I were going to drop $300+ on a distributor I would spring for the MSD 3519 over the DUI HEI. It is just a personal preference.

However, I can tell you first hand that Davis (DUI) stands behind their products. First though you have to listen to my story.

I had a friend (recently passed) that at age 71 decided to rebuild his 79 AMC 401 Spirit for Drag Racing. Because he was never a wrench turner, other AMC friends built the car and engine. During the tuning, one AMC friend who had nothing but good luck with Skip White distributors installed one because he thought the Duraspark distributor seemed sloppy. Fast forward to the Dyno tuner that could not get the car to run above 5K rpm without the ignition falling on its face. The tuning bill to find out the distributor was junk was over $200.

Next, my friend realized he had a DUI distributor that he had bought used off of eBay a couple of years before. When we went to transfer the distributor gear the roll pin would not fit because the shaft on the DUI distributor was drilled off-center. My friend contacted DUI and they told him to send in the distributor. When he got it back a week or two later it was completely rebuilt and the shaft was perfectly drilled. We installed the DUI distributor and the car ran great. In this case DUI really stood behind their product! The DUI is a good distributor with a good company behind it. End of story.