Hello guys I have been reading the forum for sometime but this is my first post. I am having a problem with a friends 69 Camaro and was hoping someone could shed some light on it. It has a 350 with a HEI distributor out of a '77 chevy. The HEI distibutor is equipped with a Hypertech hi-output coil. The problem is after about 1,500 miles of use the Ign. module goes bad. We have tried several different brands modules including Accel,NAPA, Borg-Warner all with the same results. I have also noticed excessive wear of the carbon in the cap and on the rotor. The feed for the HEI is wired directly to an IGN hot wire in the fuse box,not the org resistance wire for the points, which is what I was told to do. Has anyone experienced any problems like this or have any idea what may be going wrong?

 

Are you putting the supplied "goop" on the bottom face of the module where it mounts to the distributor housing? Gotta use the stuff that comes with the module, not standard dielectric grease. It helps conduct heat out of the module into the distributor body.

Heat is the module killer.

I have not noticed that aftermarket coils of any brand have any real effect on module life, unless the coil is just "bad" in some way.

If you're sure you're mounting and hooking up the module correctly you may wish to swipe known-good stock coil and try running with that for a while- see if the problem persists.

Black dust where the rotor tang meets the coil conductor button is normal. Doesn't take many miles to build it up to the point it's very visible.

 

Thanks for your response Damon. I have done what you suggested as far as using the supplied grease. The last one we used was an Accel. We went with that thinking it may be just poor quality parts store modules. The Accel module did come with a better quality grease and we put a generous amount on it all to no aval. I am going to triple check the wiring to make sure nothing else is tied into that feed wire that may be spiking the module and as you suggested I have a known good coil I will swap in and then its just wait and see.

P.S. I noticed you have a Malibu with a 142 Weiand on it. I have a '69 Camaro also with a 142 on it. Have you run yours after the blower install? How did it do?

 

Mid-high 12s at 114. Street tires, highway gears, stock stall converter, no traction. If I got traction and a higher stall converter I'd probably run almost exactly the same as you. Amazing how nobody seems to know/care about these cool little blowers, isn't it?

I had the Malibu on a chassis dyno a few months ago and the dyno operator pointed at the blower and asked, in all seriousness, "what's that??" Heh heh. Then I showed him. My car was one of the quietest and smoothest idling rigs to pull up on the rollers all day. The blower makes almost no noise until I lay into it. Nobody expected much.

First run they aborted about 1 second after I laid into it because I hopped the tires on the rollers so hard and put some serious strain on the 2 rear straps. They had me shut down while they rigged up 4 straps on the back end- just like the real race cars. They said they didn't realize I was serious about this. Obviously, I was grinning ear to ear. The dyno equivalent of being thrown out of the dragstrip for running too fast.

When the dust settled I laid down 390HP to the rear wheels and a torque curve that started so low I couldn't keep the trans from downshifting. I made more power than some very stout sounding N/A small blocks running open exhaust and big cams.

 

Yeah Damon, that should definatley put you in the 11's. I agree about the miniblowers, great bang for the buck but relativley unused. I guess lots of people are afraid of them cause they read about larger blowers and think they need all the fancy stuff for little ones also. Thanks again for the help on HEI.

 

I was having the same problem with my Module. It kept blowing out every 300-500 miles, used the supplied grease but still went out several times. I replaced everthing under the distributor but the pick up. I said F#@# it and bought a new Disb. I've been running fine for about 6000 miles, and just blew the module. I was messing around the other nite with some hard pulls and got stuck in traffic and temp went up to 220 in 95 degree FL heat. If heat killed it, that would make sense. I just replaced the Module about 60 miles ago, so I'll see what happens next.