Hei conversion troubleshooting
Saturday update:
I took my wiring harness out and re-did it, it is a work of art at this point. 12g wire to the coil and the module, 14g grounds from module to block, relay to firewall and ignition coil frame (its an e-core, has the outer metal frame) to the intake manifold. This is the only ground I'm iffy about, as the intake manifold is aluminum, but its an extra ground anyway as the ignition coil negative lead runs to the control module.
I took the modules (one I have been using and spare) to test at OhReilly's. Both failed. Bought another one (same, standard LX301). Hooked it up with the new harness and fired up the motor.
Exact. Same. Damn. Problem. No change whatsoever.
So I'm thinkin, great something is causing my system to burn up modules. Took the new module back to Ohreillys, test again and it fails I notice that the tech guy is grounding it improperly. Instruct him to ground it on the proper stud and voila, it passes. So then I'm like what the hell, lets test the one that was in the car again, and it passes also.
So ignition modules are good.
This leaves me with 3 possible solutions:
1) Still insufficient voltage or ground to module/coil. Don't know how this could be possible with my kickass wiring harness, but I have yet to see a multimeter reading off the coil positive or module supply terminal during the bad running condition so I can't rule it out. It shows no voltage drop with ign key on. I ordered some alligator clip extensions for my multimeter from amazon, as soon as they show up I will rule this possibility out. Without them, it is impossible to rev the motor and keep the leads in place.
2) Ignition coil is fried. Brand new, standard FD478 E-core, its not getting hot or anything so IDK how it could be bad. I have the old coil to test, but of course I don't have an old male-male coil wire to test it with. And none of the damn autoparts stores around here sell a single wire, only sets. So... not sure what to do with that one.
3) Something is wrong with the distributor. As discussed above, have verified that the wires (orange and black) aren't reversed. I have no clue what in a brand new distributor could cause ignition to become erratic over 2k rpm.
Finally, I'm putting in new autolite 65's in tonight, old ones (64's for some reason, weird) were badly fouled from all my troubleshooting. Gap set to .045" as recommended for HEI. I don't want to close them down, thats a band-aid. It should run properly all the way up to 0.060 with HEI, especially with my ultra-low compression smog dog motor.
I took my wiring harness out and re-did it, it is a work of art at this point. 12g wire to the coil and the module, 14g grounds from module to block, relay to firewall and ignition coil frame (its an e-core, has the outer metal frame) to the intake manifold. This is the only ground I'm iffy about, as the intake manifold is aluminum, but its an extra ground anyway as the ignition coil negative lead runs to the control module.
I took the modules (one I have been using and spare) to test at OhReilly's. Both failed. Bought another one (same, standard LX301). Hooked it up with the new harness and fired up the motor.
Exact. Same. Damn. Problem. No change whatsoever.
So I'm thinkin, great something is causing my system to burn up modules. Took the new module back to Ohreillys, test again and it fails I notice that the tech guy is grounding it improperly. Instruct him to ground it on the proper stud and voila, it passes. So then I'm like what the hell, lets test the one that was in the car again, and it passes also.
So ignition modules are good.
This leaves me with 3 possible solutions:
1) Still insufficient voltage or ground to module/coil. Don't know how this could be possible with my kickass wiring harness, but I have yet to see a multimeter reading off the coil positive or module supply terminal during the bad running condition so I can't rule it out. It shows no voltage drop with ign key on. I ordered some alligator clip extensions for my multimeter from amazon, as soon as they show up I will rule this possibility out. Without them, it is impossible to rev the motor and keep the leads in place.
2) Ignition coil is fried. Brand new, standard FD478 E-core, its not getting hot or anything so IDK how it could be bad. I have the old coil to test, but of course I don't have an old male-male coil wire to test it with. And none of the damn autoparts stores around here sell a single wire, only sets. So... not sure what to do with that one.
3) Something is wrong with the distributor. As discussed above, have verified that the wires (orange and black) aren't reversed. I have no clue what in a brand new distributor could cause ignition to become erratic over 2k rpm.
Finally, I'm putting in new autolite 65's in tonight, old ones (64's for some reason, weird) were badly fouled from all my troubleshooting. Gap set to .045" as recommended for HEI. I don't want to close them down, thats a band-aid. It should run properly all the way up to 0.060 with HEI, especially with my ultra-low compression smog dog motor.
