My HEI wont give me more than 10 degrees advance, what to do? It has a Mr. Gasket spring and weight kit in it. I'm wondering if the plastic bushings on the weights were to tight. I picked the lightest springs. The distibutor is in great shape other wised.

How do I fix it?



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1966 Chevelle Malibu Sandalwood, Gold color
454, .30 over, dual quads
700 R4 transmission
12" disks up front and hope to have disks in the rear soon.

The HEI should have a bushing that limits the amount of advance it can get mechanically. there are different bushings to get more or less advance... They are not usually in the spring kits if I recall, but it's bee a while. I know my MSD came with different bushings and springs...

Good luck,
Bill C.


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Bill C.
'71 SS (now with 467BBC)
'70 Nova 350/700r4
ACES #2780
Colo Spgs, CO

Rob,
You will either have to take it to someone with a distributor machine and the means / knowledge to modify it, or find a diferent distributor. My understanding is that some of the very late model ones had very little advance in them. You might also want to take a real good look at the weights in your kit. Hopefully you still have the package that they came in to compare with. It is possible to get them on upside down, and I think if you do it also limits the advance. Look real carefully at the picture on the back of the package and compare it to your weights. Been there, done that http://www.chevelles.com/forum/frown.gif

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Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md

1971 Heavy Chevy - original owner
Team Chevelle #100

I'll take another look at the weights. I bought the Mr. Gasket set with weights and springs. I even went through another distributor and took it apart cleaned the inner shaft lubed it and re-assembled it. If you were to put them on upside down wouldn't they have to go on the opposing side? If they were not on right, wouldn't they have the part of the weight that is small being pushed out towards the outside, not the larger part spinning to the outside which should be correct. I think I have found one place in town that still has the set up to spinn it and re-curve it. But I thought that was what the weights did and the springs controlled at what RPM?

BC, not sure of the bushing that you mean.

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1966 Chevelle Malibu Sandalwood, Gold color
454, .30 over, dual quads
700 R4 transmission
12" disks up front and hope to have disks in the rear soon.

I'm not 100% sure of where it goes or even if a 'normal' HEI has it, but pretty sure on my MSD there were a couple of different ones that limited or increased the amount of total advance you could get. I want to say that these bushings acted as stops for the mechanical weights and limited how far out they could rotate, thus limiting the advance. You may have the kind Bill K referred to that you cannot adjust the amount of mech. advance on...

Bill C.

On the bottom of the distributor is the gear for it and above it on the shaft is a small washer/disk with tabs turned up that allow the inner shaft to only rotate a small amount. Is this the bushing that will limit the advance and can I run without it?

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1966 Chevelle Malibu Sandalwood, Gold color
454, .30 over, dual quads
700 R4 transmission
12" disks up front and hope to have disks in the rear soon.