who dose the hei upgrade?

how do i contact the hei upgrade guy, someone said that someone on here dose it for these old nailheads. whats the cost, how much better is it than the original 61 distributor, and How Do I Get One?

 

Try this

Cheryl

 

To the best of my belief the reference is not for an HEI upgrade. HEI is the GM acronym for "high-energy ignition". Rather than an HEI, even though Dave erroneously calls it that, it is for an electonic pick up distib. system in lieu of points. An HEI would be like the 74-75 and up factory distrib. or an MSD 6al box. These change the fundamental system from an inductive discharge system to a capacitve discharge system. The latter supplies more energy to the plugs while the former does not--thus, the name high energy. The former just eliminates the maintenance associated with points and supplies the SAME inductive-discharge based energy to the plugs as does a points system. So if you think you are getting more performance from the former you are mistaken. You may when you go to the later.


I should have pointed this out a long time ago so others will not be operating under what I think is a common misunderstanding about what they are getting.

 

??????? I'm confused with former, latters, laters, and formers. Not sure what you're trying to say, but personally I would much prefer an electronically trigger MSD box over any HEI system. HEI's were high energy in the seventies, you know disco music! ou:

 

Looks like you are being called on the carpet flynbuick. Perhaps you need to revisit your facts and not post erroneous information to fellow members here.

 

Well the electonic pick ups are used in lieu of points to engage and disengage the primary side of the coil. When the circuit is broken the collapsing of the primary winding field is what transfers or induces a voltage spike to the secondary side of the coil and on to the plugs. If you have the same coil as before the pick up conversion you still have an inductive based system, the same winding ratio etc. When you go to a system that gets away from the old inductive based system generally they are capacitor based systems. Fundamentally, you have more energy storage capacity and a better decay rate with a capacitor based system. Plus, when you combine this with the electronic brains in say a MSD system they fire the pulse more than once within a permissble range of crankshaft degrees of rotation on the compression stroke. This is a true high energy (HEI) system.


BuickBuddy I sincerely hope that this truth about fundamental electronic principles does not offend you. I remember when I was an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering in the late 60s. I tried to get some of my racing friends to change from a coil (inductor) based system because the capacitor based system was so fundamentally better. They fell for the same old hype we still have today about high energy coils etc. They did not understand the difference either. But a few years later they all switched over to true high energy systems on both the round track and the dragstrip. Even NASCAR changed.

 

To flynbuick and BuickBuddy:
I think the problem here is a simple misunderstanding of what each other is saying--to the best of my knowledge, the distributor upgrade which is being referred to is indeed a conversion of the nailhead dist. to a an hei type using gm hei parts. It is not the same as the conversions offerrd by Pertronix (simple elimination of the points). And I assume that is what flynbuick is confused about, but as far as the technical differences between the inductive and capacitative discharge systems flybuick does have it right. The latter capacitative discharge system (as is used in the later gm hei systems) is indeed more effecient and produces a much more powerful spark than does the earlier style even if supplemented with a "high energy" coil.

I majored in Philosophy in college and this is a perfect example of a possible response to the age-old question--What do philosophers do? To participate in debates concering questions of medical or criminal justice ethics one finds just how often disputes can be resolved simply by paying close attention to what each side is saying and discovering mutual misrepresentations. And while it isn't uncommon to find that many people do fly off the cuff concerning topics about which they may be only marginally knowledgable, I don't think that that happens too frequently on this board. In fact, in all of my experience here members do seem to take a genuine interest in helping others out and in providing accurate information, however, not everybody knows everything about everything and so there are times that people (or oneself) will be mistaken and I would hope that others will do that person right by correcting them. That being said, the manner with which BuickBuddy responded was, in my opinion, out of line. Lets be helpful of each other rather than jumping to accusations and name-calling

 

Actually, the original GM HEI design used a lower resistance coil than the typical points coil. This resulted in higher primary current (limited to 5.5 amps by the GM HEI module) and current rise time. The faster curent rise time also allowed more current as the rpm's went up, due to the fact that the higher resistance points coils took longer to build up (L-R time constant) and didn't have time to fully charge in between firing events. So, the HEI does result in higher energy in the ignition system - not as much as capacitve but higher nonetheless.

 

Small spuds just like increasing the coil winding ratios( so called "hot" coils) in that the energy released over time in the secondary is defined and limited by inherent surface area within the decay curve of an inductor versus a capacitor. That curve for the capacitor is much steeper over time. Stated alternatively, it is just a law of physics that it takes much longer to build up and collapse a magnetic field for an inductor thereby releasing energy in a secondary versus the time to do the same for an electric field in a capacitor.

SO I think the bottom line is if you really want to do something there spend the money on a MSD 6AL box as a priority. It will work fine with your points distrib and far outperform any of these so called HEI conversions. And if the 6AL should fail, even though they are known to be very reliable, you can go back stock and get home. If a distrib module fails you may need a tow.

 

Larry unless you are telling me the module is a CDI unit the same applies. It is like building a 455 with all the finest parts, roller cam , lightweight pistons , etc but you have your lawn mower carb on it. This acts as a fundamental bottleneck in its performance. Now if it is a capacitor based module then I stand corrected.

 

At the very least Dave's system is true to whatever GM called HEI. Whether GM was technically correct is beyond me, but that is the name the system was marketed under; excepting the trigger, it is what Dave assembles into the points-type distributor housing.

So Dave's nomenclature is as legitimate as that of General Motors. :Smarty:

 

Yes you are correct that the issue is with nomenclature. It is the misuse of the term "hot" coil, "flamethrower", "high energy" "HEI" etc that leads to the common misunderstandings. All those terms really miss the point when it comes the enhancement of performance. I knew this as a sophomore in Electrical Engineering in 1969 and actually put together as a kit as I recall one of the first CDIs. We bought those from a place in Texas called something like Bay Electronics.

In short once you get to the minimal voltage necessary to fire the plug the plug is fired. This occurs at a lot lower voltage than you think. So it is not really the max. voltage ( nor the max amperage in the primary) that counts. It is the compactness of the decay curve over time that counts. That is why a pure inductor primary /inductor secondary system ( what you are calling an HEI) is an antiquated design while the subsequently introduced CDI based system was revolutionary. In other words it is the compactness of the time to charge up the system in preparation to fire and the short duration of the discharge that counts. This compactness allows you to fire multiple pulses at the optimal range of degrees rotation during one stroke BECAUSE of a fudamental principle of physics--- you can get a electric field of a capacitor up and dischaged in a fraction of the time necessary to do the same for a magnetic field for an inductor.


For the first time in 35 years I looked for an article to explain these principles once again in as simple of automotive terms with as little engineering jargon as possible. I find it interesting that today 35 years later I am again beating back the same old misconceptions about what makes an ignition system high performance and how terms like "high energy" are so often a misnomer. Why? It is because they lead you equate high energy (HEI) with better performance. NOW let's be brutally honest. The name HEI is at least a major reason you bought it---- you assumed if had the words high energy in its name that to be sure this translated into higher performance. And it is tough to accept, even when faced with the truth exposed by fundamental principles of electronics, there may be no correlation between the two in a real world application.

So for these reasons we are not splitting hairs. We are really letting you know truth about what makes a difference, what does not, and why. Old misconceptions do not die easily if for no reason other than the placebo effect. I will save that discussion for another day.

In closing remember the title that kicked off this thread " Who does the HEI UPGRADE." Let's be honest again the poster was assuming HEI = a performance upgrade and furthermore a siginificant one. Moreover, the same misplaced assumption was made by most of you who jumped in, including the "call out" man, Mr BuickBuddy. ( And incidentally, if you have not noticed I am out.)

So the moral of this little exercise in mental gymnastics and vetting of the truth is that if you have a couple hundred to spend buy a MSD CDI box and skip the HEI.

Here is an article. You will note that most applications have long since all gone to CDI based systems.


http://www.jetav8r.com/Vision/Ignition/CDI.html

 

Hey Jim, that's what I was trying to say, only condensed version. ou:

 

You did but we needed to put a little meat on the bones in order to put to rest those age old misconceptions about what constitutes a real high performance ignitiion system and why. (Or perhaps I should say what does not and why).

 

?????????????

I JUST CALL IT "GOING FROM POINTS TO POINTLESS" :laugh: :laugh:
Don