Fire in the Hole
Hey Bill, Greg here.
I started using the angle because it gives the module a flat surface for the heatsink compound to contact the two surfaces well, and that coming up with a bunch of heatsinks isn't very easy to do. (inexpensively anyway) not to mention that they are usually major overkill.
Temp doesn't really matter that much because these units are normally inside a 200 degree distributor, but a flat surface to carry off the heat that they produce internally does matter.
To answer one of the other concerns you had, some people just aren't comfortable doing wiring and soldering.
Lastly, the unused connector on these still have the pins in them and just the wire has been removed.
It makes for a cleaner hookup for the future, instead of splicing wires.
I did it that way intentionally to make people use new wire instead of splicing.
High value at a low cost for people that can't, or don't want to do it themselves was the goal with these
I think I hit that mark very well, and everyone who installed one seem to agree.:D
Of course a lot of us can do it ourselves, some can't or don't want to.
Same here, but got the parts real cheap at the junkyard last Spring (GM truck 85-95 or 93-car). GM has a factory cable that runs from module to coil, so why not use that?
Why is your module on angle aluminum? Don't they give you the finned heat sink shown on their site (I used an old CPU heat sink). Not that a flat alum plate wouldn't work since GM just bolts it in their distributor.
Good that the wires from your distributor pickup to the module are twisted. That is important to avoid feed-back pickup. When testing mine by spinning the distributor I sometimes got "free-running" because I was using loosely strung alligator clips. The pickup was sensing the coil firing and self-exciting from "positive feedback".
The ClassicHEI works, but not much value-added and you can procure real cheap at any junkyard. If you do, leave some wires on the 5-pin connector for the future and grab the GM knock sensor & module while you are in there, since many after-market engine controllers know how to use that.