[Keith Tedford]

Our SS chevelle had an HEI distributor when we bought it. A couple of times it acted a little strange but the engine did start. Finally there was an awful backfire when starting. The next time, no fire in the hole. Just rolled over and wouldn't fire. Any idea what would cause this. What normally goes wrong with HEIs when they do act up?

 

[gnicholson]

normally bad modules but other things are common. bad pickup coils, sometimes they have a break in the wire and make and break contact as the vacuum advance comes in; common on older hei's or the pick up itself . bad cap, sometimes the coil itself. is the ground strap under the coil?

 

[Keith Tedford]

This HEI worked fine for the first couple of years that we had the car. I replaced it with a 1111498 distributor that I had on the shelf, but would like to put it back in working order. I prefer the KISS system.

 

[Mike]

Is it current running with the points distributor ?
You did have a full 12 volts going to the HEI-right ?
Your distributor hold down isn't a Chinese chrome job -is it?

 

[Keith Tedford]

When I bought the car, it had the HEI running off the resistance wire. Surprisingly, it worked fine. I did switch if to a full 12 volt wire. I went back to the resistance wire when I went back to points. Interestingly, the 350 that I just bought had one of those chromed, junk distributor hold downs. The bolt bottomed and the clamp still wasn't touching the distributor collar to lock it down. One clamp in the garbage.

 

[prefectca]

Keith I have had problems with the rotor being burnt through and the fire from the coil finding ground through the rotor to the distributor shaft. Also have had dirty connections on the three wire plug on the distributor cap. If you have an old Motor manual it should have a pretty good trouble shooter on HEI. You can do resistance tests on the coil and the pickup in the distributor. If the module is bad don't forget to put dielectric grease on the mounting area on the distributor. If the module can't transfer heat to the distributor body it won't last very long.

Paul

 

[Keith Tedford]

Thanks for the help. I found "Ignition 101" on this site too. Good step by step method of checking out and HEI. I had a '78 GM truck and the HEI shorted down through the rotor to the shaft below as it did with Paul. No start there. I was told at that time that if the plugs or wires are bad, all that HEI voltage is going to go somewhere else. It did. If you can't get an answer here, there probably isn't one. Thanks.

 

[72chevelle_muscle]

I just had a problem similar to yours and found out that one of the wires from the pickup coil to the module was broken.

 

[Tom Mobley]

dead module sometimes causes the big backfire deal.

 

[GuysMonteSS]

The HEI's also wear out with time,the bushing in the housing wears & allows the shaft to have a lot of play in it,or the distributor gear itself could be worn out.
Guy

 

[chevellefreek]

i had the same problem this saturday after going through every thing i found out it was a bad module. i put a new one in and started right up