Anyone have pics of Trailbeasts HEI conversion?

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fratzog lover

fratzog lover

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Bought a used HEI on here and want to do it soon. I have lots of before/after pics of under hood mods. Hope someone else does too. How did you mount the ECU? Coil? Pics of the ballast resistor bypass would be great as well. I know it can be made to look really neat and clean. If you have done the upgrade and dont mind posting some pics I would be very grateful. 68 Dart smallblock here. Thanks.
 
fratzog lover said:
Bought a used HEI on here and want to do it soon. I have lots of before/after pics of under hood mods. Hope someone else does too. How did you mount the ECU? Coil? Pics of the ballast resistor bypass would be great as well. I know it can be made to look really neat and clean. If you have done the upgrade and dont mind posting some pics I would be very grateful. 68 Dart smallblock here. Thanks.
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I used the Designed2drive aluminum mount for the HEI module. The ballast resistor I just removed it , scraped the back side clean of the plaster type material, and soldered a 10 gauge wire across , then remounted it back so it looks stock. For the coil I used an MSD 8222 which has similar specs to an E-core and is potted to allow stock horizontal mounting. Also removed the sticker.
Dizzy 2 resized.jpg
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Here ya go.
The ECU can be mounted anywhere you want as long as it has a good ground, as can the coil but it doesn't need a ground.
I mounted my own over by the fender where it's protected from engine heat.
I also used the taller coil.
Same thing just a taller bracket.

Almost for got you asked about the ballast.
If it's a four wire ballast just follow the two wires from it to the harness (behind my coil in the picture) and connect them together with your power wire for the new coil.
You are connecting ign1 and ign 2 together so you have coil power in both the start and run positions of the key.

The short little wire with the blade type connector on it coming off the top of the coil is the tach signal connection and works with most tachs that normally connect to the canister coils negative terminal. (usually green on most tachs)

installed.jpg
 
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The wires are plenty long enough to do it like that. Any pics of the ballast splice? I'm sure I could neatly affix it to the fire wall. Just wanted to see others work first! Thanks Beast.
 
fratzog lover said:
The wires are plenty long enough to do it like that. Any pics of the ballast splice? I'm sure I could neatly affix it to the fire wall. Just wanted to see others work first! Thanks Beast.
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No I don't have pics of that sorry.
Literally you are just keeping the two wires that go TO it from the harness by the brake booster and connecting them together.
With a test light and all the connectors removed from the ballast you are looking for one wire in one of the connectors that has 12v in the On Position of the key, and the other wire has 12v in the Crank position of the key.
Some even leave the ballast there and jumper it across so it is ineffective then use the original coil wire to power the HEI coil.
I didn't like that way because it leaves a bunch of unnecessary lengths of ugly wire in there.

Once the HEI is installed and running you can clip off ALL the wiring that went to the old ignition box all the way back to that same area on the harness and tape it back up. (or you can tuck it away and leave it in case someone ever wanted to put the OE ignition back.
That won't be you after you have had HEI on it though. :D
 
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fratzog lover said:
Thats what I hear! Just connect the 2 wires on the left side of the ballast to the 2 wires on the right side?
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That's really about it, but I would verify it with a test light.
Generally speaking, you will only need the two on the right and all the rest over to the old coil can go.
(also verified of course) :D
 
just wire together the blue and brown ignition wires off the rats nest bulkhead, that go to the ballast resistor. trash the rest.
 
Plymouth Pete said:
For the coil I used an MSD 8222 which has similar specs to an E-core and is potted to allow stock horizontal mounting.
Click to expand...
You use the High Vibration coil? I hadn't thought to use that one. I am using the same set-up as you are, except for the E-core coil.
 
Plymouth Pete said:
I used the Designed2drive aluminum mount for the HEI module. The ballast resistor I just removed it , scraped the back side clean of the plaster type material, and soldered a 10 gauge wire across , then remounted it back so it looks stock. For the coil I used an MSD 8222 which has similar specs to an E-core and is potted to allow stock horizontal mounting. Also removed the sticker. View attachment 1714997247 View attachment 1714997249

View attachment 1714997248
Click to expand...

Where did you attach the ground for the module?
 
mopowers said:
Where did you attach the ground for the module?
Click to expand...

You can ground the module anywhere you like really, but if you ground it to the distributor you need to run a separate distributor to block/body ground wire also.

I know you didn't ask that specifically, but I thought I would toss in an FYI just in case. :D
 
I would mount the ECU close to the distributor, since you want the pickup wires short, and don't run them near any spark plug wires or you will get "feedback", like a microphone near a speaker. Also, twist the 2 wires tightly. On my slant six, I mounted the ECU on the inner fender, using an old CPU heat sink w/ fins and thermal grease. The ECU to coil is simple, just grab the GM cable that connects them when at the junkyard. The other half of the coil connector is a red wire for +12 V "ignition" power and white wire that can go to a tachometer.
 
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