Anyone tried one of these HEI Distributors?

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I'm pretty sure these are whitebox versions of the "ProComp" Chinese garbage. I've written to the seller to ask country of origin. Will report (here) what he says or doesn't say.

Seems to me cheaper and easier to do the real HEI upgrade instead.
 
I don't automatically discount a product just because it comes from China. The easy example in electronics is all the Apple products made there. So junky I phones, I pads, macbooks too I guess. At this price and with people here running them trouble free I don't see how it fits into the junk category. Lower quality maybe but we are talking less then 1/5 the price of a mopar performance electronic conversion. I'm willing to take those odds anyday!
 
I don't automatically discount a product just because it comes from China.

I discount garbage no matter what country it comes from. Especially garbage that's unbranded because the importer bought it from one of the thousands of junk factories and/or lacks enough faith to put his name on it.
 
I discount garbage no matter what country it comes from. Especially garbage that's unbranded because the importer bought it from one of the thousands of junk factories and/or lacks enough faith to put his name on it.

HAHAHHAA!! LOL. Dan you are FUNNY!! I like this Dan character more and more! LOL
 
I was wondering the same thing myself. Why not just get a good hei module and mount it up to your mopar dizzy? Like Dan said,cheaper and more reliable.

But I dont know about the white box thing and a lack of faith. A plain wrapper simply lowers the end cost of the product. My new c clamp style valve spring compressor came in an unmarked plain white box,but is exactly the same as my buddies high end Gray tools brand spring compressor.
 
I have the ProComp Chinese crap HEI with the coil in cap and at first had an install problem which I machined and made it slip right in. Its been in my 64 Signet for a year without a problem. Cost was cheap, my 360 roller motor runs excellent with it and I'm happy its there, BTW I gap the plugs @ .050 and it runs strong..
 
Yup, confirmed: Chinese no-name. Now you may have enough time and patience to take the gamble that your Chinese ignition system won't fail suddenly, leaving your car dead wherever and whenever it happens to be. I do not. If I wanted the character-building experience of having a Chinese car, I'd move to China and buy one.
 
So no reported failures but it's still junk, and I still say if it were from Canada you would buy 2 and build one into an altar on you fireplace.
 
I don't believe "no name" is an accurate description. I posted a link to the actual manufacturer's website in the 7th post in this very thread.

I did speak with the manufacturer at AAPEX 2011. regardless of the US vendor, any of the units you see with that chrome plated, formed steel cover came from the same plant in China. The module under that cover is a standard transistor switch, with screw terminals. The magnetic trigger will work with other ignitions like MSD by connecting the trigger coil like any other magnetic unit.

B.
 
I have to ask is there any benefit of running a system like this over normal electronic with a fender mounted module and resistor?
 
Well I couldn't resist and ordered one for my 65. Between this and the Toyota one wire alternator I should eliminate half of the wiring in my engine bay. :D
 
I have to ask is there any benefit of running a system like this over normal electronic with a fender mounted module and resistor?
By "fender mounted module and resistor" I assume you mean the factory Mopar ignition c.a. 1970's. The biggest advantage is that you can run a better E-core coil with much higher primary current. There has been much progress in semi-conductor design since the 1970's. That gives a much more powerful spark, aka "HEI ignition". You can then gap your plugs up to 0.060" for better combustion, especially with leaner mixtures if you want more economy.

Other advantages are much simpler wiring and more reliability. The old Mopar boxes are known the fail often. I also think the "ready to run" distributor pickup is much better than factory Mopar, with multiple teeth that make rotor wobble less of a problem.
 
Well I couldn't resist and ordered one for my 65. Between this and the Toyota one wire alternator I should eliminate half of the wiring in my engine bay. :D
For even simpler wiring, install a power distribution center from a 90+ car. That allows you to replace all the relay clutter on the firewall - horn, starter, and add more relays for headlights, electric fuel pump, etc., and fuse the circuits. Lookup my post on my 65 Dart.
 
By "fender mounted module and resistor" I assume you mean the factory Mopar ignition c.a. 1970's. The biggest advantage is that you can run a better E-core coil with much higher primary current. There has been much progress in semi-conductor design since the 1970's. That gives a much more powerful spark, aka "HEI ignition". You can then gap your plugs up to 0.060" for better combustion, especially with leaner mixtures if you want more economy.

Other advantages are much simpler wiring and more reliability. The old Mopar boxes are known the fail often. I also think the "ready to run" distributor pickup is much better than factory Mopar, with multiple teeth that make rotor wobble less of a problem.


Alright Cool I was wondering because it sounds like it might be a decent upgrade for my truck once I get my motor swap done because it just has the normal regular old electronic distributor and orange box setup dealing away with the resistor and getting a hotter coil sounds like it would be worth upgrading if I have the extra cash.
 
I have been testing one on my 1966 273 Barracuda, while I develop an electronic advance ignition with TBI. My 30 year old BW optical retrofit failed a while back. The immediate replacement was back to new points and tune up. The points did not run as well as the BW prior to failure. So I tried the $45 HEI. It worked better than points with OEM coil, however it seemed to miss at low rpm in parking lot situations. I put a kit in the 2-BBD carb, that helped some. Then I followed the advice of Bill Grissom, and bought an E-Core coil. That made huge difference. I think the dwell control is too short for an OEM coil, however is fine with an E-Core. I am very satisfied at the moment, however the OEM distributor with points, cap and wires is in the trunk.

I purchased a Ford TFI E-Core coil because I could also buy the wiring connector pigtail.
 
Bill,would youplease provide the link for what you'r talking about?
 
So no reported failures but it's still junk

"No reported failures" with what…one whole data point? Two? C'mon. We're talking about likelihoods and reliabilities here. At least I am. If you want to have a different argument, you'll have to find someone else to have it with.

I still say if it were from Canada you would buy 2

Please refrain from putting words in my mouth, at least until after the first date.
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If it were from a reputable manufacturer and had a good track record and were cost-effective compared to other options, I'd likely buy it no matter where it was made. If it were junk from Canada or America or Congo or England or the Despotic Republic of Elbonia I'd reject it just as quickly as I reject Chinese garbage.

As for Apple products being made in China: Yep, that's true. And Apple's name is on 'em, and Apple stands behind them, and they have an excellent reputation and track record for reliability. None of that can be said of no-name junk.

I'm not makin' this up, y'know. I've got years of experience as a product development manager in a few different automotive component fields. A product is not automatically junk because it comes from a particular country, nor is it automatically good just because it comes from some other particular country. But there are some countries, such as China, where you are practically guaranteed to get dog poop shaped like a distributor (carburetor, headlamp, whatever) unless you pick your job shop very carefully and do a lot of babysitting and supervision through the whole process. One of my standard tests when sourcing manufacture of a product was to send a detailed spec -- an unbuildable one -- to a bunch of candidate job shops. The ones who came back and said "Yes, yes, no problem, we can build it for you, sign here!" got rejected immediately. That was most of them. The (very) few who came back and said "We build the general kind of item you're looking for, but we need to talk about your spec because we see some problems" made it to the next stage of consideration. And I really mean "very few"; the ratio was about 50:1 at best. And this was within the last 5 years.

Another interesting tidbit that leads me to throw around that "no-name" phrase: You go to the auto parts trade shows -- doesn't matter whether it's AAPX in America, AutoMechanika in Europe or South America or Asia, whatever -- and you collect a couple of dozen product catalogues from "different" Chinese companies all offering the same general type of product (distributors, fuel pumps, headlamps, light bulbs, alternators, whatever). You bring them back to your hotel room at the end of the day and you spread them all out on the bed. They all have different front covers with different company names. They all have different inside front covers with a different paragraph about the history of the company. They all have different back covers with a picture of a different building. They're all printed in different colors and formatted differently. But the content is identical: the product photos, the part numbers, all exactly the same. The next day you go back around to the booths and you pick up samples from each "different" company and ask whether it's an in-house design and build or a purchase. Each and every boothkeeper claims his own company designed and built what you're holding, but at the end of the day you have a double-handful of identical items obviously from the same place. So who's lying? Usually all but one of them!

Y'dig?
 
I don't automatically discount a product just because it comes from China.

Oh, I do! Unless it's a plate of General Tso's chicken, Which I have found hairs balls in before. (***cough...cough....meow.....cough***)
 
I reject about 90% of Chinese made stuff,but there is the odd piece here and there which look's right and last's. Lordco's chinese made brake part's are crap,I'll assume it's made in a plant where a bit of this and a bit of that are thrown in the metal process becuase those china made rotor's sure warp and overheat quick. The ones in my van took exactly 6 stops to warp and they also seemed to glaze over,as the stopping power just isnt the same any more.

BUYER BEWARE!
 
Yup, confirmed: Chinese no-name. Now you may have enough time and patience to take the gamble that your Chinese ignition system won't fail suddenly, leaving your car dead wherever and whenever it happens to be. I do not. If I wanted the character-building experience of having a Chinese car, I'd move to China and buy one.

I drove a 1973 Dodge Van for 8 years. It only left me stranded once in 8 years. Guess what part failed.

I've read several threads on these distributors. There have been a few DOA units, but I can't remember reading about any failures.
 
I have to ask is there any benefit of running a system like this over normal electronic with a fender mounted module and resistor?

For me the benefit was getting rid of the orange box and extra wiring. Secondary benefit is the full 12 volt coil and bigger spark gap. Still waiting to see if that makes a measurable difference in fuel economy.

I've seen those brackets that let you mount a GM HEI module onto the mopar distributor. This was cheaper.
 
The outside of my unit looked better than the inside. The cap does not fit well and looks like the mold was made with a pocket knife by hand. I needed to make adjustment to the stator it rubbed on the pickup rotor. I think rough shipment created the problem. The guts of it are quite crude, even the screws. The grease or oil used to lubricate it smelled so bad, I decided not to investigate more about the internals.

For me it is an inexpensive gamble to buy some time, while I work on a better solution. It seems to work OK. The initial advance is a bit too quick at lower RPMs. I have found it necessary to limit the base timing some, however it could use more advance at high rpm.

Life often keeps me just a bit short on time, when I want to play with my hobby.
 
The initial advance is a bit too quick at lower RPMs. I have found it necessary to limit the base timing some, however it could use more advance at high rpm.

This is good info. I'm curious how you go about measuring this sort of thing. I've never curved a distributor before.

Would this mean that it needs bigger springs or smaller weights? I wonder if it can be modified to allow more travel in the centrifigul advance. Or is it the vacuum advance that isn't sufficient?
 
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