Bad HEI Distributor? Help! - No Turn Over Now 4/11/11

[Suddendeath]

Alright. I'll try it tomorrow morning. Getting some rest for now. Thanks for all your help so far.

No problem my man. When I did my HEI it took me two days of troubleshooting to figure it all out. Everyone says it's so easy, just 1 wire...

But it's not. Haha. I'll help ya out to the best of my ability.

Ya gotta remember, your coil pumps out anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 volts...if it's not perfectly grounded OR getting a SOLID 12v, it's just not gonna fire.

[Coryd55]

No problem my man. When I did my HEI it took me two days of troubleshooting to figure it all out. Everyone says it's so easy, just 1 wire...

But it's not. Haha. I'll help ya out to the best of my ability.

Ya gotta remember, your coil pumps out anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 volts...if it's not perfectly grounded OR getting a SOLID 12v, it's just not gonna fire.

I checked the ground for the coil earlier. Got like 12.3 or 12.4V. So that checks out. I'll check rotor tomorrow morning.

[The Colonel]

Cory- send me your email address- I have a .pdf I found for checking the HEI parts. It's too large to attach here.

[TPICherokee]

Would the S-terminal give off enough juice to run an HEI?

On the ignition module, there are 2 plugs, one plug has 2 wires. Take the larger gauge of the 2 wires and wire that to the ignition terminal on the HEI. This would be plenty of key on power. Use large gauge wire too.

[lkmarsh]

Isn't the S terminal +12v only during startup? Your HEI needs +12v constantly, will not run if resistor wire is still used. Try wiring to I terminal.

[crazyspoons]

I ended up running mine from the red/w wire (seen below). This even begins as a nice heavy gauge from the fuse block. 12v for start and run.

The splice in it just runs to the starter relay, the heavy black wire is the one that goes into the HEI. Don't make fun of the mess; i did it outside this winter which makes my work sloppy . But because everything works, I'm not gonna play with it.



I believe the red/w wire used to run to the old module, so it was just hangin around.

[Coryd55]

HEI is getting power from "I" terminal (sorry about that).

Replaced everything except the shaft and plug wires with new parts - coil, cap, pickup coil, etc. Turned the key...and nothing. No spark, no fire.

Everything is checking out as far as voltage. Only strange thing is tach wire (brown) is getting constant 12V.

Help?!?

[Coryd55]

?

[serehill]

Hmm

I did this once & for some reason the polarity was backwards on the pick up from the distributor. cut & reversed the wires coming out of the distributor & it fired right up. it was a 360 with a ford distributor tied into a MSD 6a.

[Coryd55]

What wires exactly? The ones coming off the pickup coil?

[Coryd55]

Tried routing the 12V source directly to battery to make sure there wasn't a voltage problem. Still nothing.

Help me out.

[FallonJeeper]

Do yourself a huge favor. Get an MSD Pro-Billet (Ready to Run) V8 Distributor AMC, PN 8523 and a Blaster 2 Coil.

Follow the instruictions and just drive it. The wiring instructions are simple and straight forward. You CAN'T mess it up.

You'll need a keyed ON only 12v power source. That means no power when key is not in the position, power on only when the key is in the run position.

You'll also be very happy with the performance.

Here's the basic wiring diagram

[78 WIDETRAC]

http://www.performancedistributors.com/technical.htm

Cory check out DUI's techncal page, it give good info on HEI ignitions. Good luck with the HEI, it has to be something simple, I wonder about your "tach wire being hot" usually that is where you plug your tach into. so there should be no hot tach wire. take a picture it helps with answers.

[FallonJeeper]

I suspect the hot wire is going to wrong side of the coil. 12v keyed power goes to the positive side and the tach is read off/connected to the negative side of the coil.

[Coryd55]

Here is a picture:



Still nothing. Bought a new cap and rotor in hopes that higher quality parts (got MSD) would help. I'm about to shell out the $280 for the MSD HEI, so I can at least get tech support from the company.