Not charging after HEI conversion

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RustyRatRod said:
But while we're givin you a hard time, we're also givin you good advice. Seems like a good tradeoff.
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oh absolutely true I am very appreciative of the help! I've got a spare module here that'll be in the glovebox once it's back on the road and I'll make sure I get it mounted up nice once I know where everything is plugging in. To be frank, the car starting up and me not shocking myself even once are two miracles my skill level didn't deserve!
 
DropTopDart64 said:
oh absolutely true I am very appreciative of the help! I've got a spare module here that'll be in the glovebox once it's back on the road and I'll make sure I get it mounted up nice once I know where everything is plugging in. To be frank, the car starting up and me not shocking myself even once are two miracles my skill level didn't deserve!
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I'm not as fortunate when I do house electrical. Installing ceiling fans for example, I normally get hit five or six times. lol Cut the power off? Where's the fun in THAT? lol
 
RustyRatRod said:
I'm not as fortunate when I do house electrical. Installing ceiling fans for example, I normally get hit five or six times. lol Cut the power off? Where's the fun in THAT? lol
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Hey SOMETHING has to make the day interesting right? lol

I've only had this car for about a month so I was concerned I might burn the thing to the ground doing this... so I disconnected that battery straight away! rofl
 
RustyRatRod said:
I'm not as fortunate when I do house electrical. Installing ceiling fans for example, I normally get hit five or six times. lol Cut the power off? Where's the fun in THAT? lol
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I've had a few "almosts" and I DO turn the power off, or at least try hard

We were pulling out the air handler/ electric furnace of a heat pump. We were set to install nat gas 90+ and use the heat pump only in AC

I was disconnecting the 240 to the electric furnace, and there was a condensate pump, permanently wired into a j box on the side of the unit. So I pulled it open, pulled out the black, got my little "buzzer" stuck in there and beeping away, and went up the half stairs to the garage to the panel, looking for the breaker. Poorly or not marked, this house was then, 30 years old. So I finally found the breaker, went down and happily confirmed the black was cold

Undid the romex clamp nut, undid the wire nuts, and yanked the romex up out of the box. KERBLAMO it said on the way out. A quick look confirmed the WHITE was all arced and welded

I looked at the pump and realized it was TWO TWENTY!!!

Went up to find the other breaker, and here's the one I turned off, and here's the other leg, tripped, ABOUT SIX BREAKERS BELOW and certainly NOT GANGED!!
 
George Jets said:
Not sure why you added all that wiring and relays to the back side of your alternator with your HEI setup, that wiring should be left stock. That is probably what is causing your charging issues.

Just use and E-Coil from like a '95 F-150 ford pickup, simple + - hookup spades and you run straight 12 volt to power it with no ballast resistor.

About as simple as it can get, and works great too.

View attachment 1716155271

Way hotter sparks than the round stock coils.

View attachment 1716155272
E--coil goes in line ^^^ where the yellow coil is pictured here.


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NOT QUITE

Running a relay triggered by the "run" line and using the relay to power the ign system AND the VR is a GREAT IDEA and sometimes REQUIRED as one method to alleviate OVER CHARGING caused by voltage drop in the harness
 
RustyRatRod said:
Some of yall have some nice installs under those distributors. The only thing I don't like about them is so far, I've not foune anyone who makes one piece connectors for them. Those single connectors just ain't makin it for me. No offence. lol
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Look at mine took a while to find them to work right.
 
George Jets said:
Not sure why you added all that wiring and relays to the back side of your alternator with your HEI setup, that wiring should be left stock. That is probably what is causing your charging issues.

Just use and E-Coil from like a '95 F-150 ford pickup, simple + - hookup spades and you run straight 12 volt to power it with no ballast resistor.

About as simple as it can get, and works great too.

View attachment 1716155271

Way hotter sparks than the round stock coils.

View attachment 1716155272
E--coil goes in line ^^^ where the yellow coil is pictured here.


☆☆☆☆☆
Click to expand...
Is that the same style coil that's on a '99 Ram?
 
RustyRatRod said:
Some of yall have some nice installs under those distributors. The only thing I don't like about them is so far, I've not foune anyone who makes one piece connectors for them. Those single connectors just ain't makin it for me. No offence. lol
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I agree - I didn't like those either. That's why I picked up the proper connectors from a Chevy at the junk yard. Much cleaner install in my opinion, but in reality, you can't see it (at least on a small block) once it's installed. I know it's "right" though.
 
Little update on the original issue: I replaced the voltage regulator and its back to charging strong. So if anyone does the bare bones HEI conversion without the VR replacement or alternator relay and finds themselves with a weaker charge, swap the VR and all worked great for me. I'll be adding the second relay on the charging system soon and mounting everything up on the heatsink and I should be able to cross this one off the to-do list. Appreciate the help everyone!

edit: if anyone comes across this and is using it as any kind of reference, the wiring is the same as the pictures in the original post. No changes to what I had, just switched the VR out
 
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TT5.9mag said:
Make your own bracket. And I have to correct something from earlier in the thread, you don’t want to use dielectric grease on the module. You want to use hi temp heat transfer paste. It’s white and is important.
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Same stuff used when mounting a computer heat sink to the processor on the motherboard.
 
Ricks70Duster340 said:
Same stuff used when mounting a computer heat sink to the processor on the motherboard.
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This is more my expertise here, so I'll add some specifics on this. Arctic MX-4 is the best easy easy option for thermal paste. MX-6 and Noctua NT-H1 are both technically better, but are more expensive and probably overkill.

If you end up going with a different brand of paste, check to make sure it doesn't need heat-cycled or cured. If the paste you use is exceptionally runny, you probably want to heat-cycle it. Basically just get the paste up to operating temps for a couple minutes, then shut it down and let it cool until its back to room temp, rinse and repeat a few times to let it harden and fill the little gaps between the two surfaces.
 
The two types of heat transfer paste I have seen & used are:
- the original white paste, which has carcinogenic beryllium in it.
- newer silver paste which has silver in it & is more expensive. Silver has excellent heat conduction products.

HTP is not the same as dielectric paste.
 
indeed

should also be noted that in the orgional use the module was bolted to the inside of the dizzy under the cap. a place that is quite hot... paste might have been a necessity

howevwr its got quite a big surface area of aluminium on the back and if you were bolting it to a heat sink bolted to the car body its in a much cooler place..... 1 flat pice of brand new clean aluminium clamped with small bolts to another, pretty good contact across the whole back..... you probably don't need to worry too much about the paste

power dissipation is the same
ambient temp is lower
heat sink ambient temp is lower
no engine heat creaping up into the thing it is bolted to
difference between hot module and cold surroundings is greater

you'll be fine

Dave
 
DropTopDart64 said:
I'm very new to electrical work so I very likely have done something wrong, but I don't know enough to know how to troubleshoot this myself so I'm looking for some help. I followed SlantSixDan's post on how to do this conversion and the ignition does seem way better now. It starts up much quicker, stronger sound from the engine, so I don't think I'm too far off the mark, but...
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Hi, I am new in this forum, please excuse me for silly questions. I am starting to do electric ignition conversion to my valiant 65 slant. Where can I find this SixSlantDan's howto-post ? It is not in articles and I don't know how to search it as Dan has quite many posts here :)
Also I am interested if somebody can hint what conversion kit is known good and where to buy? I believe there is cheap fakes available? Some distributors I have seen in ebay seems to have plastic gear and it does not sound good to me
 
Morgan,
For a car that came with points ign, the Pertronix conversion kit is about as simple as it gets.
Having seen these fail, I am not a fan of Pert products.
Another simple hook up is to buy a Mopar elec ign dist [ quite cheap ] along with a GM 4 pin HEI module [ also cheap ]. If you use the HEI module with the factory coil, you must retain the stock bal res. If you buy an E core type coil like the MSD #8207, you can delete the bal res & open the spark plug gaps to 0.060" because of the greater spark energy produced.
You will find HEI wiring diagrams on the net, or maybe somebody here could post it....
 
Hi,
Thanks for replies and for very good link Kendog170. I assumed wrong that this is simple task with ready "plug in upgrade". I must read and get to known better this subject before I order anything. This car will not be daily driven so maybe it is best option to stay stock points system.
 
MorganKane said:
Hi,
Thanks for replies and for very good link Kendog170. I assumed wrong that this is simple task with ready "plug in upgrade". I must read and get to known better this subject before I order anything. This car will not be daily driven so maybe it is best option to stay stock points system.
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That link that Kendog posted is the one I followed for this upgrade. It was fairly intimidating at first, but I read that post top to bottom many times to figure out what all I needed to do. In the end, I swapped the distributor and coil, wired the module up to the relay and distributor as seen in the pictures of this post and it seems to be doing well for me so far.
 
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