69 buick 430 would like to switch to hei, anyone know of another year i could swap, and how thank you joe
Hei swap Any Buick V8 HEI unit will work, however, after trying many and putting all the new parts in one that worked very well, I found that Performance Distributors will make a brand new unit for about $280.00, tailored specific for your application and what you have in your car, (weight, cam, converter etc). I highly recommend these guys, they balance the weight in the counterweights to your needs, and test the unit, no one else out there does HEI's better. Their catalog is quite impressive, you can even chose the color cap you want, if you like to run at the track and fine tune it, opt for the bronze gear and adjustable thumbwheel that replaces the vacum advance unit, with this you never have to take the cap off or loosen the distributor to fine tune at the track, otherwise, just go with the vacum advance as is, and use it, much better street drivability and highway mileage, and cleaner plugs. The advance actually activates under low vacum, contrary to popular belief which is that it advances at high vacum (like at idle for instance). If you are installing one in a non-HEI original car, you must run the igniton lead (from the key switch) to a relay first and upgrade to a 12 or 10 AWG wire to feed the HEI unit from the relay, other wise the low capacity (high resistance) of the original small supply wire will either burn up itself, other components it is supplied by, and blow fuses. A simple five post accessory relay can be found at a NAPA store for around $20, you will only need to use four of the posts though, these type are more common and less expensive than the four post type. If you need I can even supply a simple wiring diagram for doing the relay. I love mine and use it hard with no problems. :3gears:
Also consider Dave's small body HEI - he modifies your points dist to a real nice HEI. He can also make it into a trigger for an MSD box. Do a search this site for Dave's small body or go to: http://www.davessmallbodyheis.com/ - Bill
Hei I put a Pertronic kit in my '73 LeSabre. Uses the original cap & rotor. You'll never know there are no points under the cap.
Ideally, you will want to change to a 12SI alternator to provide the higher current HEI's thrive on... check this out: http://www.4alterstart.com/pages/st...p://www.4alterstart.com/highoutputalternators and you will have to modify your wiring slightly, since the HO alternators are internally regulated... see these folks: http://www.wiringharness.com/ They are the best, for sure. Your 225 isn't listed, but if you call them, I'll bet they can help! Also, read this thread... it has great information: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=58062&highlight=coil+resistor Hope this helps! Frank
