Hot Rods 318 Mopar HEI Brakedown on way to Frog Follies

Not a problem with the shaft of the new HEI dropping in. Already done. But, I am going to have to retime it with the roter now pointing to a different sparkplug terminal. And, I will have to wait to do this until my friend is available as it is a two person job. As some have stated, I can only think that the reason for that is in the mfg construction.
NOTE: The reason I am replacing the problem HEI with a Davis Unified unit is that they are made in the U.S.
I will have to unhook the fuse panel from the firewall so I can get to the back of it where the wires initiate. Davis instructions says to make sure to use at lease a 12 guage wire from a keyed source, preferably a 10 guage. The keyed source I am going to use is the Coil fused (30 amp) circuit but it came with a 14 guage wire so I have to replace it with the heavier wire.
Internet description of the Davis HEI also say to gap the plugs .55 which is quite a bit more than the stock gap that I initially set.

 

You CAN adjust where the rotor points by indexing the intermediate gear on the cam gear. It just requires a bit more fussing.

 

I did rewire the power supply, using 12 guage from the key to the distributor. Put an in-line 30 amp fuse in the line. My friend came by yesterday and we cranked the engine a little at a time to get to top dead center to make sure we had the roder at the right spot. Hooked all the wiring back up and the engine fired right up. We fooled with the timing a bit and the idle and it seemed to run better with the DUI than the earlier chinese HEI. Oil pressure started at 75 and then dropped to 50 as the engine warmed up. I had installed a new breather and PCV. Will drive it some this week and hopefully no more oil in the HEI. Fingers crossed.

 

Here's hoping!

 

If you want a way to monitor the blowby of the engine, you could rubber band a coffee filter around the breather. Under light driving, it should have little to no oil and air coming out the breather, it should be all intake. Only under hard acceleration would there be enough pressure to push air/oil out.

 

A test is to take off the rocker cover breather when the engine is idling and put a piece of paper over the hole. It should stay there.

 

Thanks guys. I will try those suggestions. I did drive it a couple of miles yesterday and didn't see any issues.

 

First, if you’re experiencing that kind of crankcase pressure you would be pushing oil out of all the seals. I’ve actually seen the dipstick tube get launched out of the block into the hood. Also, on pan evac systems, don’t run them on the street. They are meant to run on open headers.

Id also check the plugs. If you are pushing that much pressure the PCV would have been overcome with oil and plugs would have been oil fouled. You say your oil pressure is running at 70pds. Is that cold or hot? If it’s hot seems to be a bit high on a stock 318.

as for my small blocks I’ve been running Petronics the past few years. The ECUs you get nowadays for the stock electronic systems are made in Mexico and just don’t last.

 

The reason I keep every old oem ecu I come across

 

What kills the boxes is bad grounds. The box is suppose to ground when bolted to the firewall or inner fender. I run a separate ground in addition to bolting the box. Some of the best boxes have been the Standard Ignition sold by NAPA.

 

The original bolts for these had the serrations, often got swapped for some other bolt. I'd suggest star washers as an upgrade when the item being held down uses the fastener as a ground path or attaching grounds to body or chassis.

 

Responses starting to drift here guys. Reminder, the HEI problem wasn't electrical in orgin. It was oil coming up the shaft into the HEI. Currently, start up oil pressure is at 70 buy it drops back down to 50 as the engine warms up. Lots of varying views about the pressure----some say to high, some say it's ok. Remember this engine is cam'ed up I use Brad Penn 20-50 because of that.

 

Something I didn’t take into consideration regarding your issue is your bearing clearance. Been my experience with small blocks is they tend to run a little high upon startup but the will settle down when the motor warms up. I’ve had oil pressure on aftermarket gauges show around 25-30 pounds at idle and 50-60 running 3000 RPM. That’s running a 20/40 Rottello. That’s with a stock oil pump. After reading about your initial problem the oil running up the dizzy shaft may be an issue with aftermarket HEIs.

 

What I have or have not experienced has nothing to do with the problem the OP has. I've not ever had a HEI system on my Mopars, but the last carburetor equipped street driven vehicle was killed in 2012.

I'm waiting to find out if the issue was a distributor problem, or if there is something else going on.

 

This may or may not help, here are a couple photos of a OEM HEI dist. and a OEM reman. point dist. The HEI has a shielded collar where the point dist. Has the plastic collar that looks like it would allow a lot of oil over the top of it. If the oil is coming up the shaft maybe just adding a o ring might turn it back ? I don't see it being blow by, on a small block Chrysler the first place they will push oil out is the dipstick tube.

 

Have about 50 miles on the 33. Pulled the new HEI cap and no oil in it. YIPEE! Moving on to other projects. Done here.

 

Congrats

 

Missed seeing you at Louisville, Walt. Hope you're doing well. It was a good show but we had to dodge lots of rain showers.