i want to replace my dist. with an hei. i know some were for computor cars and some weren't. any one know what year i need to look for? this is going into my 1970 455 in my 84 t-type.
Well you can find a 74-76 HEI for a 455 car, or you can find a 74-80 HEI from a 350 (junkyard items--they're about $35 in my area, but need rebuilt). You will need to use the gear from your points dist. The hole for the roll pin on the points dist gear needs enlarged, I believe. Or you can get your points dist converted to HEI by the Ignition Man. I've heard good things about his product. He used to post on here, but something happened and he's somewhere else now.
The downside of this is that you have no idea what the advance curve is on your NAPA distributor. HEI's typically had alot of mechanical advance built into them. That means the amount of initial advance you can run is limited by how much mechanical advance is in the distributor. You are so much better off getting one of Dave's HEI converted points distributors. Dave rebuilds them, recurves them, and installs an adjustable vacuum advance. This is extremely important. If you want your Buick to run strong, you have to pay attention to spark timing. Most warmed over Buick engines love at least 12* initial advance. You try running that with a typical factory HEI, and your engine will do a cheap imitation of a diesel when you overadvance it at higher RPM. www.davessmallbodyheis.com
This is good advice from Larry. I got lucky with mine. It's a junkyard piece that got put together with some parts that were "laying" around. I have a TA 212 cam that is degreed in straight up. I set my initial at 10*, I forget what my mechanical advance is exactly, but with the vacuum advance its about 38* total. The vacuum advance is limited with that dime trick I told you about Larry. My car seems to really like it. It doesn't diesel, but its a bitch to start sometimes (that may have to do with fuel supply more than anything though). I have my idle set to 600-700RPM and it makes power to 5300 RPM. After that the stock 70 intake starts to hurt the airflow.
Its great to have a brother that can just spew this stuff out because I am pretty much a retard with distributors and carburetors........but I like to replace body bushings.........:laugh: Good luck
