HEI Help

[Kart21]

Bought a GM type HEI distributer for the 68 'stang, 351w auto. Tested it on the bench with a battery, lots of spark.

Pulled out the points distributer and put it in no spark. Pulled it out and bench tested it with a battery and spun it with a roll of the fingers. Hot, blue spark. In the car again, 13.2 volts on the battery, hot wired direct to the battery, ground to the battery, crank the motor over no spark.

Pulled it out and only when I spin the distributor quickly do I get a spark, cranking speed no spark.

Any ideas guys? I went with this system as I thought it would be dirt simple and give me a hotter spark than the points.

Any suggestion on what to get if I can't get it to work. I really don't want to put in a MSD or something $$$ as this is her car and only street driven.

[HarrisonTX]

Grounded?

[Kart21]

Mounted a separate wire from the distributer to the - side of the battery. Cranking the motor it just won't spark at the low rpm. Points worked at this cranking speed

[slow84lx]

Your car is pissed off at you for going to the mullet side with that distributor. Try a good OEM Duraspark unit.

[BP]

Make sure there isn't a hole burned through the rotor. It may be just enough to where it'll spark on a bench but not when installed. That and are you sure the rotor is turning when cranking the engine?

[garycrist]

Is this an internal coil or are you trying to fire an external coil?
Is the dist. turning?

[shumpertdavid]

I've had a weak pickup coil cause the issue you are describing. I'm assuming you're got a conversion distributor with the gm internal hei. They are pretty stupid simple as you suggested. If you've got a jumper direct from the battery it should have enough ground through the hold down clamp and internals to ground sufficiently but just to be certain use a jumper cable to the distributor body and battery ground.

Also if you want to check the pickup coil, use a volt meter set to AC voltage and you should make 2-2.5 volts when cranking. Again, AC VOLTAGE, not dc.

[Kart21]

Yes it's turning, and it is a conversion, but I still think my ass feels kinda funny......

[garycrist]

I had one of those HEIs eat my lunch once.
It was the pick-up and intermittent, occasionally
and sometimes too.