Hei conversion from pints need help... what am I doing wrong.

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cawcislo

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Car is still new to me. Bought it as a project. 70 duster 318 converted from slant 6 by previous owner. Car fires up with old points style distributor, but does’t rev up very good and around 4,000 rpms when driving breaks up really bad like the car is missing. I thought It may be distributor related so I pulled out the points distributor and the rubbing block on the points is severely worn, when I spin the distributor it barely opens the points. I’m surprised it ran at all.

so I got an electronic mopar distributor and added the hei bracket and wired in the hei. The two wires to,feed the hei converted distributor are labelled b and c on the hei module. B being battery or positive and c being coil or negative.

My ignition coil has a dark blue wire which I believe to be positive and a black wire negative. So I wired the hei b positive to the positive coil side. And hei c to the coil negative side. So car fired up but took a lot of cranking and messing with the timing of the distributor to get it to run. It idles fairly well, but will not rev up at all. If I increase rpms past like 1000 it wants to stall out.

‘I have an ecoil I was going to wire in for the hei conversion but thought I’d try with the factory coil for now to make sure things worked first.

what am I doing wrong. Help me trouble shoot.

Your help is greatly appreciated.
 
Pics of your parts would be good, is it a stock hei chrysler distributor

ecudia.jpg
 
1963dartgt said:
Try flipping the two dist wires around
Click to expand...


This here and DID YOU bypass the ballast resistor?

What kind of module did you use, the simple GM 4 pin or something else, and where did you find the diagram?
 
Yes flip the 2 magnetic pickup wires. And ditch the ballast resistor and wire the 2 ballast wires together.
 
I do not have a mopar Ecu. It’s stock mopar points ignition. Using 4 pin hei module. Wiring comes from Mopar HEI Conversion. Which is where I got the bracket from. I did not bypass the ballast resistor. Since I’m still running the stock canister coil I need the resistor. Once I swap to the ecoil I will bypass the ballast resistor. But I don’t want to do too many swaps at once until I know this hei conversion works.

I will try to swap wires that are powering the hei module that I ran to my coil.
 
No the wires you need to reverse are the 2 running from the distributor pickup inside the distributor to the HEI module. Not the coil wires.
 
Swapped the wires from the hei module to the coil. Cranked and cranked and no start. Here the instructions I was using.
91714578-53C5-4B51-AED1-8A29EF1D29F2.png
 
cawcislo said:
I do not have a mopar Ecu. It’s stock mopar points ignition. Using 4 pin hei module. Wiring comes from Mopar HEI Conversion. Which is where I got the bracket from. I did not bypass the ballast resistor. Since I’m still running the stock canister coil I need the resistor. Once I swap to the ecoil I will bypass the ballast resistor. But I don’t want to do too many swaps at once until I know this hei conversion works.

I will try to swap wires that are powering the hei module that I ran to my coil.
Click to expand...

You do not need the resistor, and it SOUNDS like you wired the HEI to the coil+? If so the HEI is running on reduced voltage, as well My car is apart, but I ran it for two summers, the original old coil with no ballast. HEI varies the dwell electronically, and it seems not to hurt anything. If however you elect to keep the resistor for now, at least move the HEI power + wire to the "key" side of the ballast
 
Do what he has listed... with your HEI bracket information. It works great. Hook up the e-coil and see how it runs. If you where having problems before this conversion then it is not the problem. How did it run before you started the swap? On a side note, you do not not NEED to get rid of the resistor but the module will like it a bit better if you do.
 
moparmat2000 said:
No the wires you need to reverse are the 2 running from the distributor pickup inside the distributor to the HEI module. Not the coil wires.
Click to expand...

I’ll have to try that tomorrow, but I followed the instructions when wiring the pickup to the hei module. Worth a shot I guess.
 
67Dart273 said:
You do not need the resistor, and it SOUNDS like you wired the HEI to the coil+? If so the HEI is running on reduced voltage, as well My car is apart, but I ran it for two summers, the original old coil with no ballast. HEI varies the dwell electronically, and it seems not to hurt anything. If however you elect to keep the resistor for now, at least move the HEI power + wire to the "key" side of the ballast
Click to expand...

I’ll unplug the ballast tomorrow and run a jumper wire to see if that helps.
 
After reading your OP, I think there is more to the problem. You could clean up the old points distributor, clean and gap the points and see if it makes it run better. Not so sure ignition is the only problem.
 
Also there is a bushing in the block for the distributor drive that could be worn or a loose timing chain. Just some food for thought.
 
Don't take this personally as that's not how it's intended. What I want to know is this. Why on earth would you make a change with zero diagnosis? What "I" would have done would have been to get a dwell meter, set the points correctly and see what it would do. This would have told you if you had another problem elsewhere. With the points set correctly, if it still ran badly, you would have another issue. If it ran good, then you would have confirmed the distributor points setting was the issue. As it stands now, you have no idea. Diagnosis goes a much further distance than simply throwing parts at something.
 
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Tried swapping wiring from hei module to pickup, car wouldn’t fire up. Bypassed ballast, no change. Had another new hei module swapped that, no change. Stumped. Regapped the points on the old points distributor, tossed it in and it fired up right away no problem. Maybe the electronic distributor pickup has some kind of problem? Is there no sufficient voltage from the coil positive and negative to run the hei module?
Instructions said to run positive and negative to hei from coil wiring. Maybe that’s only for electronic ignition mopars. Anyone make the swap from points to hei converted electronic mopar distributor?
 
Is the HEI for certain grounded through a mounting bolt and IT MUST BE MOUNTED in order to heat sink or you will burn it up. The bottom is the sink.

Check the dist. for the required reluctor gap using a brass feeler. Put your meter on the dist pickup leads and crank the engine. With the meter on low AC volts, it should generate about 1V AC. Here is a diagram "I think" Trailbeast built but it is simple, easy to follow, and will allow you to check your work.

4pin-jpg.jpg


NOTE the way that the dist. pin hookup is drawn. This is the required polarity to get rotor phase correct. Regardless of that pickup polarity, spinning the dist should generate sparks
 
EBCD95F2-8ED6-4006-AF28-15CEB20A5A8E.png
Here’s the site “designed to drive’ and that’s how the distributor looks with the hei bracket mounted to the bottom.
 
That tells me nothing. What have you checked?

1....That the HEI module is FOR CERTAIN flat against the sink, with some thermal compound. Those modules have a locating pin out the bottom, and either you must break off the pin, or have an appropriate clearance hole in the sink
2....Make absolutely certain that the screws are actually tightening on the module, and not bottoming in the holes.
3, I would forget factory wiring. Hook up everything except power and then "hot wire" 12V battery direct to coil

I've done over 5 of these now. One was in a Toyota 20R that I swapped into an old Cletrac Crawler. One was my own car, and one was my "emergency ignition" system, and I've helped with others These are easy. You just have to be careful.

How about the distributor. What is it's history? Are you confident it works? Where'd it come from, etc? And did you do the clearance with a feeler and check the AC output?
 
As 67Dart273 says, the HEI module needs +12 V supply (B). If you have a ballast, you tap that on the upstream side of the ballast (not at coil+, which averages ~8 V). Best to toss the ballast and use an e-core coil. Even easier is a GM 8-pin HEI module and its coil and factory cable which connects the two so no fuss (1985-95 V-8 trucks). That loses the cute "under distributor" mount, but not bad since that sits in a grub-zone on a slant.

To insure you have the polarity of the two wires from the Mopar pickup to the HEI module correct, remove the distributor cap, clip the HV coil output wire to engine ground and clamp a timing light pickup over it. Flash it at the reluctor as you crank. It should flash when the teeth align with the pickup. If flashing in-between, you have polarity reversed and timing will be erratic. If hard to crank, you could remove the distributor and spin it by hand. Insure the pickup wires are short and twist them. Keep away from spark wires or you might get "positive feedback", like holding a microphone near a speaker. Also, the HEI module's body must have a good ground to work.
 
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