Technical Electronic ignition

Tommy,coming from you I am not insulted,I know you are just trying to help and if this is not corrected soon that's probably what I am going to do.

I hate the looks of the entire engine but at this point in time I can't spend too much cash.Ugly engines need hoods and they need to stay closed! HRP

 

HRP
Your GM HEI has a tendency to wipe the control mod as well as the coil and you should actually carry one of each on a trip. They get hot and electronics do not like hot.

I usually keep a spare window distributer lying around and I may even have two if I look hard enough. They are cheap and always work for a quick fix when I need to go and don't have time to trouble shoot or screw around. If I find that I still have two you can have one of them to keep for a backup. If I don't have two I'll find you one, no one around here wants 'em.

 

Danny, when it comes to electronic ignition, I've got a lot to learn, and at my age, a short time to learn it! LOL!!!!
Are you absolutely sure fuel system is OK? If you remember, when we were all @ Frankie 4 fingers, Russ was having bad misfire problems on his Merc and ended up taking it home on a rollback thx to AAA.
Trouble turned out to be a small flake of teflon tape that had found it's way into a main jet in carb.

 

hook up a vacuum gauge and see what it says.

 

I tend to get in a hurry and hose off the car and then take off. The louvers in the hood side curtains let the distributor get wet. Is the inside of the cap dry? That has been my experience.

 

I just installed a window distributor converted to HEI by this gentleman --> http://www.davessmallbodyheis.com/

He says the coil-in-the-cap HEI is a problem because of the heat generated by the coil. His conversion allows the use of a small cap distributor (read-->stock looking), but the advantages of HEI.

Mine looks and works great.

 

Ya find out anything yet Danny?

 

Not really,I don't have any bad wires in or around the coil,I can't find any cracks in the distributor cap but that's as far as I got this morning,I went to the swap meet yesterday and heading over to Williamston in the wagon this afternoon for the car show/big fireworks display.

I'm fortunate ,I do have a back up hot rod so it's not that urgent. HRP

 

Danny I dont know if anybody has said this but check your eng. ground make sure it is still making good connection. and then check frame. and battery post just make sure every thing is clean

 

I have a late model SBF dist with a MSD box and never had any troubles. I also have a HEI in another SBF and hate the look of it. The car came with the HEI so I cant speak to reliability for anything over a year.

 

OK, I tried darn near everything suggested with the exception of changing the distributor,new rotor*****on,new distributor cap,new module and a new coil pack,,I check and double checked the small wires and the hot wire...everything is fine.

This morning in a fit of desperation & and completely out of ideas I called my pal Earl who runs a auto repair shop and ask him to come over and see if he could figure out what the problem was.

He checked everything and he couldn't figure out why it wouldn't crank,he looked at the spark plug wires and said,"here's the problem,you got the wires crossed!"

I told him,"I didn't change any of the wires and had actually numbered them when I took them of."

He ask what I had done with the old distributor cap and I went and got it out of the trash.

Earl Said," I see the problem,,this is a cross fire cap and the new one is not!"

We re-installed the old cap and the car runs like a top.

BTW,I used a ACCELL 50,000 volt coil pack and the car fires up faster than ever.

Thanks for all the help guys. HRP

 

Glad to hear you figured it out. I fought a no start for a whole weekend and finally had a friend check out my work. We both spotted the problem at the exact same time. Chevrolet's are clock wise rotation and Pontiac's are are counter clock wise. I checked the firing order so many times that weekend that I memorized the firing order 18436572. That was about 45 years ago.

 

Glaad yall found the poblem Danny. Yeah I expect those crossfire caps could throw you a cuve! LOL!

 

Dave,you are right,and from the outside they look identical. HRP

 

As I understand it, you initially had a poor running engine that quit.
So after all the troubleshooting you put the old cap back on and it runs fine.
But doesn't that put you back to where you started? I wonder what was the initial faulty part that started it all. Was the trouble started with a new cap?

 

Danny you might want to get another crossfire cap. I made the mistake of putting an accel (corrected/crossfire) cap on the sedan and it lasted 50 miles before it started missing, replaced it with an original crossfire an it worked like a champ. It's also what I have on the 3 window now.

I think Southern rods has them or you can go here:
http://www.crossfiredistributorcaps.com/

 

Don,the problems did start with the cap but using the wrong one didn't make it any easier to figure out what the problem was.

I am now firmly convinced that the main culprit was a very week coil pack,,we pulled the distributor out and hooked it up to a battery and spun the gear,,we only saw a faint spark off a couple of the 8 distributor metal ends.

After installing the Accell coil pack it shot sparks that you could see in the sunshine.

 

Glad you followed up with the end result. These troubleshooting threads are very helpful at times when we can't seem to find an answer to similar problems.

 

This one tried to kick my*****! HRP

 

Well,the celebratory exuberantion was a little premature.........

I left the house for the normal Wednesday morning hot rod breakfast and made it about half way to my destination and the car died at a stop sign.

I called my friend with a rollback and my pal Rene' came and picked me up in his new Challanger and we proceeded to the designated meeting place,shot the breeze and enjoyed a good breakfast.

The car has plenty of gas but absolutely no spark whatsoever,,I sent the rollback and the sedan to my pal Earls shop..I'm gonna let him figure it out...I'm tired of fighting what seems to be a loosing battle....my head hurts! HRP

 

Phttttt

I offered you a good dizzy several posts back. Nyaaaaa nyaaaaa.

Hope you sort it out buddy. You will find that it is something simple.

 

Well, there's always one of these: http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/A1C0/301835/02780.oap

It's what I resorted to, when I was fighting with my distributor in the coupe.

 

OK,I just picked up the sedan ans the car did indeed have spark,,I just keep winding it and it never fired so I****umed there was no fire.

Earl checked it from front to back and said there was no gas in the carburetor..even the fuel pump was dry.

This is were I start to feel like a idiot....

All that was changed was a short piece of gas line from the tank to the metal line,,it had several cracks in it and one was*****ing more air than gas,,heck the hose is only 20 years old



This could have been part of my hard starting issues.

I drove the car about 10 miles and the car is running great so with my fingers crossed maybe this problem is solved.. HRP

 

Ha. i feel your pain. Had that happen to me on my rpu. Old style hose? Todays gas eats them. Replaced it with fuel injection hose. Done!!!

 

It seem nothing could be wrong with the distributor now,I replaced everything,,today's problem was lack of gas.

I was showing my wife and stuck the hose under the faucet and held my finger over the opposite end,,water sprayed out in a couple of places,so I figure the fuel pump was*****ing more are than gas. HRP

 

Ha, simplest thing sometimes. Replace them all.

 

Glad you found the problem and it was a simple fix. That being said, I have a question about converting a points distributor to something like a Pertronix. My SBC doesn't see anything over 5500 RPM and after reading all the issues people have with electronic ignitions would there really be any reason to "upgrade"? Points are so simple and if there's no difference in MPG and I end up with the gremlins that seem to go with electronic ign. is there really any advantage?

 

I have the Pentronix flame thrower distributors on my Deuce pickup and my '54 wagon and haven't had any problems with them.

The one I had problems with is a GM HEI. HRP

 

Now come on! It's not GM's fault you got the wrong cap. HRP, I think you owe HEI an apology.

And DO replace ALL the hoses with the fuel injection hoses. I built my T with them, but still check them frequently. No cracking yet.

 

I had the same problem, and chased my tail the same as you did, with my '74 911 years ago. I kept blaming it on ignition. Turned out to be a bad hose on the inlet side of the pump. Most solutions are simple.....once you figure it out.