That's actually not a bad suggestion. I'd love to remove it off the firewall. It does not suit the car and in all due respect to MSD...... it's an eyesore. The tach mounted on the dash would be coming off at the same time.
OK, so I've got the replacement coil and am leaning towards ditching the MSD box. The engine has an MSD distributor. I'm ***uming the keyed power currently hooked to the small red wire on the MSD box will go to the + coil terminal? The two wires coming out of the distributor I'm ***uming will go to the + and - connections on the coil? Is this correct? Any idea which wire would go to which coil terminal? Is that all I need to do to eliminate the MSD box....... along with eliminating the main power and ground? Thanks in advance. Allan
nope! if you want to run a point ignition, you need a point distributor. If you want to run an electronic distributor like that, you need an amplifier.
X2 The simpler the better !!! To many put ""Bling"" parts on there Rides they do not NEED !!! This engine that I am running now 11 to 1 with just a Unlite , 3 ft coil wire , north of 550 hp @ flex plate 6:60'-70's in 1/8th maybe faster if I moved the coil closer to dizzy !
It's been less than a year since I ditched mine, but I swear I don't remember all the details. First step, completely remove the MSD box, and wire the coil and distributor, just as there never was a MSD box. I did replace my electronic distributor with a "ready to run" MSD electronic distributor, simply because my electronic Mallory was giving me problems. Looking back, those problems were probably created by the MSD box. I think I googled instructions, and YouTubed a video. Trust me, if I can do it, it's simple. (see my signature; K.I.S.S.)
If that's the case, I'll likely clean up/shorten the wiring and leave it as is for now. This may be a stupid question but is a big block and small block distributor interchangeable? I do have a new small block Mallory dual point I could stab in there if it would work. Probably the best thing to do is clean up the wiring as I mentioned, install the single coil and call it done.
The small and big block distributors are almost all the same (the exception is a tall deck big block with an adapted short deck intake). I would just try the dual point....might want to lightly file the points first, in case they're oxidized from sitting. And carry a spare condenser with you, just in case.
Good choice on ditching the MSD, really not needed on a street driven car. As Jim mentioned the dual point would be my choice also, just get the points set correctly. I run Vertex's in my cars. Expensive but very reliable and if I leave the lights on just push it (with the help of a few buddies) and motor lights up.
Well, here are my options for the distributor replacement. Any opinions? Both are new...... or "semi" new. lol The Mallory doesn't have vacuum advance though. Is that an issue? Although the engine is currently set up without vacuum advance. Thanks in advance. Allan
you could get more money selling the shiny big HEI distributor....so that means you should put the dual point on the car
Haha. I was leaning that way as well. I figure I'll install the new coil and get the car running again and then remove the MSD box and swap distributors. Don't want too many directions to look when it won't start. lol
Just so you know, that Street Fire HEi does NOT require an ignition box to run. It is stand alone Now having said that, there is nothing much in Ignition that I despise more than an HEI, so I would run the Mallory Dual point with a PerTronix conversion inside - no box to worry about and no ****py points and condenser (which is what most of the ones you buy these days are)
question. i know that the aftermarket HEI are ****, but a factory gm HEI are a damn good reliable unit. from my experience i have seen/fixed a higher percentage of pertronics problems compared to the HEI. is it the looks you are talking about?
Hope you have a few minutes to read, this is a little something I put together about HEI's Why I despise the GM H.E.I. Distributor (and it’s not just because it’s big and ugly) Let’s start at the cap and its significant flaws. The large diameter of the cap would ordinarily be a good thing as the farther distance apart between the terminals helps reduce spark ****ter where the spark jumps to the wrong terminal and fires the wrong cylinder or weakens the intended cylinders spark. The problems come from a mul***ude of design flaws. The coil in cap is the first of these. The coil and its terminals are un-sealable from the rest of the cap and causes electrical leaks to ground both inside and outside the cap. Remember that the first rule of electrical flow is that a charge will always take the path of least resistance, and that isn’t always where you want it to go. For a spark to be created the gap has to ionize and then polarize. At that point the electrons can jump through that ionized corridor of air. The more distance between the two terminals makes it harder to ionize and therefore harder for the spark to jump. The problem in the HEI is that with the cap being non-vented the ionized air stays in the cap creating ozone which further promotes a trail for the spark to follow creating cross fires, ground fires etc. Now you might wonder why not just drill a vent hole in the cap? Well with the module and the coil inside there you are now asking for corrosion issues creating a whole new set of problems. The next problem with the cap has to do with the center electrode. It is connected to the coil by a very fine spring and the coils high energy destroys the conductivity of the spring causing the electricity to jump from the coil connector to the center electrode, losing energy. This creates more ionization and pressure that causes the seal to start leaking, filling the coil chamber with even more ionized air allowing the secondary discharge to escape outside the cap. The center electrode is also made of very soft graphite which wears faster than a conventional cap center electrode. That soft graphite wears off and sprays around the inside of the cap creating another path for the spark to go where it isn’t supposed to. That’s the black dust you see inside the cap. The terminals in the stock and many replacement caps are Aluminum. Aluminum is not a great conductor of electricity and with all that ionized air, carbon, and graphite build up etc the spark regularly looks for somewhere else (other than the terminal) to discharge. This can be improved with a br*** terminal cap. Also many of the stock type caps and cheap off shore replacements have the terminals “popped” in as versus cast in which means they can move, affecting timing per cylinder. The rotor has problems of its own in this environment. They are very thin for the amount of current they are trying to control and because of this “Blow thru” is very common. With the design of the advance mechanism and its placement, there is an easy ground path right under the rotor. This is so common it’s not unusual to see the weights welded to the pins! If you see red dust on the advance it is from this grounding and welding effect. That red dust is iron oxide; essentially pure iron rust. And guess what? It is very conductive adding to the whole problem of the spark looking for another path to ground. The steel screws that hold down the rotor also create a path for grounding and plastic replacements will help here. Next comes the coil. The original coil and most replacements have a bad winding ratio along with small winding conductor size, poor insulation between the winding sets, not to mention the terrible secondary output coil terminal and wire sizings. The coil design was intended for a high voltage output (for the day) but without regard to amperage and duration of spark. Both of these are very important to having useable spark energy. There are aftermarket coils that do a better job but they can, and usually do, overload the factory modules switching ability; we’ll get to that shortly. The bigger problem is the placement of the coil in the cap in the first place. The coil design puts out a lot of Radio Frequency Interference and Electromagnetic Interference and all that “Noise” is directed at the module and the pickup. On top of that the high voltage from the secondary side of the coil is only about an inch and a half from the module. When that high voltage seeps into the distributor and ground fires to the module, the car dies, the module is toasted. If it gets to the Hall Effect trigger instead, at least you “only” get a misfire. And then there is the Module itself. The module is the electronic switch that turns the coil on and off after receiving a signal from the trigger. Putting the module inside the distributor creates a myriad of problems. First, it is susceptible to all the high voltage discharges that are constantly happening inside the distributor. The small and open wiring for it is also constantly under attack. The transistors that are used on the stock modules are not really capable of delivering strong current to the coil and worse yet the ramping has a slow or lazy curve as viewed on the oscilloscope. Ideally you want a square wave for opening and closing the circuit. A slow opening allows the magnetic field in the coil to decrease before firing weakening the spark energy as versus a quick and total collapse that creates the strongest useable spark energy. All modules create heat and the small size of the HEI module creates plenty of it. Without a heat sink built in it was bolted to the distributor housing and that aluminum is a good distributor of heat, but being held inside a hot distributor just adds to the problem. To help with the situation GM mounts the module with a thermal compound that helps draw away the heat. Most aftermarket modules come with dielectric grease as a subs***ute and that doesn’t work. The GM manuals actually call out for the cleaning and replacement of the compound once a year! I don’t know anyone who EVER does it, until the module fails. It is also not uncommon for the HEI module to have grounding issues. Replacing the stock steel screw with a br*** one and running a separate small ground wire can help. These modules fail so often every parts store on earth has a large inventory of them, I guess that’s good if you are stuck running an HEI. The Capacitor (sometimes wrongly called the Condenser) that is in the HEI is placed close to the module to help keep the module alive due to the bombardment of secondary voltage. They tried moving it to the coil to cut down on ignition noise, which is what it was used for on pre HEI ignitions but whenever they did the modules died. Unfortunately the capacitor adds to the ramping problem within the module but without it the modules fail. The GM module does have the ability to change dwell with RPM, which is great in theory, and has been used to great effect by PerTronix in their Ignitor II design but the GM design unfortunately seems to allow the dwell to drift by as much as 50% of its total dwell time creating unpredictable dwell times causing random spark energy. With all these flaws it amazing that the things work at all. The reality is they do an OK job in a stock application, especially if they are maintained. But for high performance work the HEI is just not anywhere near up to the task of making a good strong spark that is well controlled for optimum performance. The advance curve in a stock distributor is nowhere near optimal for a performance motor and they really fall apart above 5000 rpm. Also the stock vacuum advance units have no provision for adjustment. Although these issues can be overcome with aftermarket parts, with all the other problems, not to mention the overall size that makes installing them in non stock applications a real pain, they just aren’t worth the time or money to make them work. Remember these distributors were designed in the beginning of the Smog Control era when mixtures were so lean that conventional points systems couldn't jump the .060" spark plug gap that was required to get enough burn time to actually burn the mixture.
funny, I put an old wore out HEI in my old sububan a few years ago and put almost 50k miles on it, it seems to work fine. I haven't tried pertronix ignition, it probably works fine, too. Been a long time since I actually had to fix points, but I did have a couple bad condensers recently, the "real" one from the electronics store (cost less than the ****py stock replacements) seems to be doing ok. I never had a blow through on an HEI rotor. had a couple modules **** out. The advance mechanism problem is real, and used to be you could fix it up pretty well with an advance spring/weight kit. They are still ugly.
I'm old and forgetful but I recall reading on Bubba's website that a properly tuned engine will never use much more than 10,000 volts. Seen on his website under the heading Ignition Coils. Explain this to me and/or correct me if I'm wrong.
Did you type that with tongue in cheek Jim? You run an old Mallory dual point/double life with points don't you? What are you using for a coil? thx.
My Chevy II has a newer Mallory dual point, not the double life. Probably from the 1980s. Tach drive. It has a Pertronix coil in it right now. I was looking for something that looked like an old normal round black coil, that was the closest I could find. I have HEI in my trucks, they work fine, and no one ever sees the engines. My new luxury car is a 75 Lincoln, with the early Ford DuraSpark ignition...seems to work, so far.
wow, i am thinking it is amazing i have put any miles at all with these ****py things. i guess i owe the luck gods a few hundred thousand combined miles. quick story: i had a problem with a neighbor, wanted to stop dealing with him being unreasonable and looking at his eye sore and listening to his dog bark. i brought my problem up at a party with interesting results: the nursery man said plant trees, the mason said build a wall, the excavator said pile up a berm, the fence guy argued i needed a fence. my point: if i remember right you have stock or are a dealer for petronics? F.Y.I i went with the realtors suggestion.
HEI ok for stock , sometimes Not !! Junk for Race ,, I have had issues Like Hotrodon mention I have had several burn holes threw rotor ****ons , arcs burning up coil in cap ,, Pertronix eye "Roll of the Dice "" I stick with MSD Mags Mallory Mags ,Points "good ones ". Mallory eye but who knows now if replacements are any good
I hesitated posting that in the first place, because I knew there would be guys that took a defensive stance without really understanding what I said - I knew there would be some controversy, BUT, Like I said, they work OK for stock type and or lower RPM vehicles. That does not take away their inherent flaws and they really aren't very good for race vehicles. There are circle track cl***es that require the things, all in the name of low cost and the ability to police them. The guy that race those series will tell you that they either spend a Ton of money on "Race Quality" HEI's with aftermarket Module's, different coils, different caps, etc and they still have issues, or they run up graded stockers and replace parts a lot. As for Me - I work for PerTronix, in the exhaust division. And the Ignition side of the business does make and sell HEI's distributors for all kinds of motors, Race HEI's, Upgraded high output module and coils, better caps and rotors etc, and I still wouldn't run one. If it were just about promoting PerTronix (As you imply with your little story), the easy route would be to say " BUY our HEI, it is better than stock or the cheapo Chinese" (Both of which are true) but the fact is I don't like the design regardless of who makes it.
I had several (left me dead on side of the road) issues with my electronic Mallory. Replaced with an MSD ready to run electronic distributor. Been a year, no issues, so far.
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