Need engine help

[Fltche]

Here is my situation... I am a highschool student with a gas hog. I have an interest in offroading but not a serious one. (to explain the interest further, I am not interested in rock crawling or serious mudding. but i would like to be able to take this thing off road for hunting or a trip to the mountians just to play around now and again.) I have a 1980 J-10 pickup with the 4.2L 258 inline 6. It is carburated and stock. The carb is a single barrel as far as i know. I need some help in making it more fuel efficent without taking away the offroading capabilities. But currently i am also planning on getting hotter wires, plugs, and distributor coil/distributor. Any advice is greatly apreciated. Pulling the engine out and getting a new one is not an option for my budget at the moment. Thanks for your help.

[irmosc]

When I had my CJ w/ 258 by far the two best upgrades were the HEI distributor and Motorcraft 2100 carb. You can get both for under $400 to your door. It will wake up the engine but don't know about fuel usage. It will give you better drivability and more power.

[Fltche]

I had actually heard about changing the distributor but i wasn't sure if the source i got that info on was accurate.

[Fltche]

so do you have any recomendations for a HEI distributor? I am hoping to find a hot burn because i am planning on getting hot sparkplugs, hotter wires. Know of any HEI distributors that will work?

[irmosc]

For HEI there is a lot of junk and a lot of overpriced stuff. I have had (3) 2 for a 258 and (1) for a 360 from crtperformance. All they do is HEI for Jeeps. No import crap here. Very friendly, fast ship and great prices. Also detailed instructions and they also use their products in their Jeeps. (They also sell them unbadged to most 4wheel drive stores)

Link:
http://www.crtperformance.com/

they also sell on ebay at a slight discount
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-AMC-Jeep-258-232-GM-HEI-Distributor-UPGRADE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33691QQihZ016QQ itemZ260235179096QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

As for 2100 carb I went to the jeep carb guy on ebay. Was a no worry approach but cost $$. He sets them up for your application and provides excellent suppoprt after sale for install. My cost a few years back was like $160.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Motor...QQcmdZViewItem

[tgreese]

For a '80 258, an ignition upgrade is very easy. You already have the Motorcraft Duraspark system. Just do the "TFI upgrade" for the existing system. You use the existing distributor and upgrade the cap, rotor, wires and coil. If you want to use a different module, the GM HEI module will work with the Duraspark distributor. There are lots of articles on the web about this.

Your stock carburetor is the Carter BBD 2 barrel (2V). It's ok in terms of performance, but they can be troublesome. If you are mostly worried about fuel economy, I don't think the (popular) Motorcraft 2V will show any difference over a well-tuned Carter BBD. You'll want to make sure everything is in tip-top shape and perfect tune if you want to squeeze a few more MPG out of your truck.

Realize that these vehicles will never get very good mileage, regardless of how many upgrades you make. Your driving habits will have the single biggest influence on mileage - drive like grandpa around town, and keep the speed down on the highway if you want to save gas.

[Fltche]

i did a little research and i found some interesting things. First thing was that i found a carburator that was extremly appealing. A Weber 32/36 progressive carburator. It says that it is supposed to help my fuel efficency by 10-18% and it will give me a little more horsepower too. Would it be cheaper to buy a new distributor or to buy the new coil and parts like you mentioned and if buy the coils and other parts is cheaper, what parts do you recomend that will give me the hottest burn?

[tgreese]

Originally Posted by Fltche

i did a little research and i found some interesting things. First thing was that i found a carburator that was extremly appealing. A Weber 32/36 progressive carburator. It says that it is supposed to help my fuel efficency by 10-18% and it will give me a little more horsepower too.

The Weber would be a good choice if you can afford it. 10%-18% seems a little optimistic to me (advertising copy!), but it would likely be better. If you change your driving habits becasue there's more power available, you won't see any gains though.

Would it be cheaper to buy a new distributor or to buy the new coil and parts like you mentioned and if buy the coils and other parts is cheaper, what parts do you recomend that will give me the hottest burn?

The TFI upgrade is all off-the-shelf parts used on other cars, so that should be cheapest. You can check the prices online - Rock Auto is usually the cheapest. You could buy an Accel coil and module or other hot-rod parts... I think they are compatible. However, for an otherwise stock engine, anything more expensive than quality name-brand stuff (ie Standard Ignition or similar) with factory HEI like the GM HEI or TFI stuff would be a waste of money IMO.