Has anyone upgraded to a TA Performance HEI distributor on their 340? Just looking for thoughts on doing this, type of wires to use, alternator upgrades, problems with this swap? I appreciate any thoughts, suggestions and advice.
Should not be any issues - it uses the same distributor and gear as a 350. I swapped one into my 340 from my 350 when the 340 one died. Follow TA's instructions and you should be fine. remember it is a large cap so the water hose may be an issue. Be careful running the spark plug wires and the orientation and it will make the install easier. I looked at pictures online to see how others had done it. I believe you will need 12v too so look at Larry's sticky. If you have any questions call TA; you may want to ask if running it in a 340 voids the warranty. Another option - the unit Todd sells will go in a small cap....
Thanks @12lives for your response. I read online that there was a problem with clearing the closest intake manifold bolt so they had to go with a button head bolt so the cap would clear, did you run into that?
Interesting - I did not put an hei in, just swapped standard dist. I put an gm hei in the 350 though. On line research is your friend unless someone here pipes in. Did they say what hit the bolt, the base or the vacuum canister? OK, I found the discussion I think where he put an hei into a 300. It does look like you would need to change that one bolt.
All the big cap HEI distributors have the same potential clearance problems. The big cap uses 4 hold downs. The bosses on the cap can hit the forward edge of the intake manifold in some cases. It all depends on what initial timing you need to run and on what tooth you install the distributor on. You can have a case where you go to adjust your timing and you run out of rotation because the cap hits the intake. The solution is to pull the distributor out and install it one tooth over so the amount of swing you have gives you enough adjustability to set the timing where you want it. This may or may not happen to you, just wanted to mention it. The top radiator hose can sometimes hit the top of the cap, so you may need to run a different one. I think the better option is to have someone go through your small cap distributor, recurve it, and install an MSD trigger into it. I believe Jim Weise can do that. I got mine done by Dave Ray back in the day, but I do not believe he does this anymore. I know Ken (techg8) at Everday Performance can rebuild and recurve distributors. You may want to ask him about it. http://www.everyday-performance.com/distributors.htm http://v8buick.com/index.php?forums/everyday-performance-llc.172/
