Ol' Blue's magnum swap

[Blackhatguy]

Took care of the wire routing while I was in there too. Any excuse to play with my tig welder..

 

[RustyRatRod]

I like the plug wire looms you got goin on. Nice. What size wires are those? Large by huge? lol

 

[93ragtop]

Funny thing.... I bought the same distributor and wires on my 87 dakota that I put a 5.9 magnum in...
If you dont mind me asking, what is your opinion on the HEI distributor?
Mine came with a bad vacuum advance. Got it replaced. No big deal.
But it seems that the mechanical advance is too slow, and it advances too much.
Im going to get a recurve kit and play with it.

 

[Blackhatguy]

I like the plug wire looms you got goin on. Nice. What size wires are those? Large by huge? lol

I made the looms out of some scrap aluminum angle I had laying around, and the wires are 10.5 mm. I'm not running enough juice to need that much insulation, but the big chunky boys had a nice visual pop to it I think.

 

[RustyRatRod]

I made the looms out of some scrap aluminum angle I had laying around, and the wires are 10.5 mm. I'm not running enough juice to need that much insulation, but the big chunky boys had a nice visual pop to it I think.

I agree! I like um!

 

[Blackhatguy]

Funny thing.... I bought the same distributor and wires on my 87 dakota that I put a 5.9 magnum in...
If you dont mind me asking, what is your opinion on the HEI distributor?
Mine came with a bad vacuum advance. Got it replaced. No big deal.
But it seems that the mechanical advance is too slow, and it advances too much.
Im going to get a recurve kit and play with it.

To the best of my knowledge, HEI distributors were designed in the era of 7.5 compression and restrictive bead type catalytic converters. On those motors these supplied advanced curve works perfectly, but with Magnum engines you want the timing to come all in by 3750 and be limited to about 30/32. The stock curve on the silver spring HEI weights is all in by 4500 and maxes out at 50°. I followed Uncle Tony's advice on the HEI distributor and put a weld bead in the advance slot, then filed it down till it only moves 30°. Then I put the heavyweight and light spring kit on it so timing is in by 3,500.

 

[RustyRatRod]

To the best of my knowledge, HEI distributors were designed in the era of 7.5 compression and restrictive bead type catalytic converters. On those motors these supplied advanced curve works perfectly, but with Magnum engines you want the timing to come all in by 3750 and be limited to about 30/32. The stock curve on the silver spring HEI weights is all in by 4500 and maxes out at 50°. I followed Uncle Tony's advice on the HEI distributor and put a weld bead in the advance slot, then filed it down till it only moves 30°. Then I put the heavyweight and light spring kit on it so timing is in by 3,500.

Probably runs pretty good I bet.

 

[Blackhatguy]

Probably runs pretty good I bet.

Up until just recently, number three and five header tubes were mashed in to about 30% of their original volume to fit around the factory power steering gear box and it still ran way better than the rear tires can handle. Since I put a smaller gearbox in it I was able to fix some of that damage and get them up around 75% of what they're supposed to be and while I was in there I also welded up the port entries so I could perfectly gasket match and eliminate any voids or places where the exhaust flow could Eddy. I'm looking forward to seeing what that feels like now. I've just got a few more things to button up to get the motor ready to crank, but my steering coupler won't get here till Monday

 

[93ragtop]

To the best of my knowledge, HEI distributors were designed in the era of 7.5 compression and restrictive bead type catalytic converters. On those motors these supplied advanced curve works perfectly, but with Magnum engines you want the timing to come all in by 3750 and be limited to about 30/32. The stock curve on the silver spring HEI weights is all in by 4500 and maxes out at 50°. I followed Uncle Tony's advice on the HEI distributor and put a weld bead in the advance slot, then filed it down till it only moves 30°. Then I put the heavyweight and light spring kit on it so timing is in by 3,500.

Thanks for your answer. I will have to try and find that uncle tony article