Had a friend come over this morning to be a new set of eyes and double check my work. Even brought over a couple of old HEI distributors and a carb in case we wanted to swap out parts. I tested his coil pickups and they reacted the same as mine so not the distributor. We got to talking and decided to time it by ear. He's built more SBCs then I've been alive so I trust him. He advanced the distributor so we could get it running at idle. I checked the timing and it was ten degrees over where it should be, but it ran great. We advance and retarded the distributor until it seemd right (by ear again), and to be sure it started okay without too much advance. Starts and runs fine now. When we put the motor together 5 something years ago we must have use a different timing cover or balancer cause the timing marks make no sense. Doesn't matter, it runs. While tightening down the distributor hold down bolt I noticed the paint marks on the distributor lined up perfectly with the marks that have always been there. I guess we got it. We'll see. Thanks for all the advice and help. At least now it's got a rebuilt carb, new fuel filter, plugs, cap, rotor, coil, and ignition module.
Stampie
MegaDork
7/28/23 12:05 p.m.
In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :
Glad you solved it.
Stampie said:
In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :
Glad you solved it.
Not so fast. Apparently I did not take it for a long enough drive (just up the street and back). Went to take it for an actual drive. No bueno. It will idle great, and cruise at light load, but as soon as I tip in it misses and stumbles. Sometimes I can push past it, most times I cannot. It "feels" electrical in nature, but who knows at this point.
Why does adding "Corvette" to my search for an HEI distributor bump the price from under a $100 to over $300? It's a generic replacement 350 that's in the van. Yes it came out of the Vette, but it's not original. Can I just get the Summit branded distributor?
You can.
I put a (can't remember the brand) "Blueprint" HEI distributor in my '77 Silverado.
It needed re-curving out of the box.
The top of the advance mechanism shaft needed to be re-welded after a year.
The vacuum advance failed after two years.
The ignition module failed after five years.
Thing is, the expensive ones aren't necessarily better. A student bought an expensive MSD distributor that failed the module within days.
