My experience with an HEI conversion

Agreed.The HEI modules(coils?)tend to go bad quicker than the DS module(brainbox we call 'em here)so you might want to get a spare & keep with you.I'm glad it works for you,but now you're gonna have to get a big,shiny set of high $$ valve covers to compliment that HUGE looking dist. cap.

 

Tim, you're right about those valve covers. I found a slow leak in one of my gaskets, and we all know the only way to fix that is with shiny valve covers. Can't run an engine with a chrome breather and big yellow wires without shiny valve covers.

I keep hearing people say these GM HEI modules burn out all the time, but in the four cars I've had with these, the only one I ever replaced was 30 years old anyway. (but yes, I think it was heat related) I think if you install them with the dielectric grease they come with, the distributor becomes your heat sink and it really takes a lot to kill them. I ran one in a '91 Olds Bravada that I crammed a 350 into. Cooling was was way inadequate at first, and I'm quite sure that module saw 270 degrees without dying. If your temp gets that high you have bigger problems than a $15 HEI module...

Rowdy, good information there. Mine has the 50k coil and "performance curve" weights and springs, (whatever that means.) With that coil I can run a much bigger gap. And whatever disadvantage the HEI may have for heat, surely there's an advantage in the much shorter distance between the coil and the plug. At least while I'm burning out modules left and right I won't have to worry about a coil wire.

72MAV, that's a pretty motor...

 

Duraspark I is variable dwell...

 

"Rowdy, good information there. Mine has the 50k coil and "performance curve" weights and springs, (whatever that means.) "

if you remove the cap and rotor, you wil see 2 oblong looking devices attached in opposite directions. if you pull those away from the center of the dizzy, they will advance the timing by manually advancing the rotor. this is mechanical advance. vacuum of course works the same, but different motivator. the mechanical advance is like a centrifugal advance, and the different weights and springs change how fast it goes to full advance and whatnot. mine was set to be at full at 3 grand, which was 32 deg btdc. mechanical was set 10-12 btdc. it worked the same regaurdless of engine vacuum. it would hit everytime right off the bat and run like a scaulded dawg. there was no problem with vacuum leaks or low idle vacuum. all that was simply removed and secured. cold weather, hot weather, rain, shine...nothing stopped my truck. it hit on 1/4 turn or less. explosive start too..after i built it and was leaving a convience store, i fired it up as a dewd passed in front of my truck. it went rowr BOOM blah blah blah (open hedders at that pont). dewd stopped me and told me "that motor isnt stock. you dont tune that that well stock." the went on and asked me if i would rebuild his for him and he would pay me. if i weren't leaving new jersey due to being stationed in san diego, i would have. that truck got 12 mpg on 31X10.50 with a load, without a load. up hill, down hill. and even going across the mountains leading into southern cali pulling my 68 cj5, i never had to drop out of 3rd gear..it just went. i do ALL my gm dist the same way. even my jeep is setup that way.
worth taking a look at. if it has the super coil (whatever brand name u like), platinum plugs, high volt wires (spiral core) and a good gas flow, itll hit everytime and run great. stomp it, and itll let ya know right now!

but there are so many newer choices out there now, i doubt i go hei again. i found one that has several adjustments on the dizzy itself on the outside. its all electric advance so its tolerencs are withing .5 deg.
http://www.cranecams.com/?show=promo&id=16 picture this as a kick ass new dist. with endless tuning possibilities.
1. make adjustments easily/on the fly.
2. run a regular gas tank and a 10 gallon fuel cell in the trunk on 2 seperate fuel lines. one filled with daily driver fuel, one filled with e85 or 100LL av gas. you cruise all week and when the weekend comes wanna play. its friday night, you flip your switch which turns on your "other" fuel tank in the truck and it runs the good stuff into you dog house. then you hit your dist and select "racing" curve and jump back in. give it 20 seconds to cycle to old fuel through and you are ready to play on the good stuff. reverse steps when its time to go home and you have a safe dual gas setup. you can even put an EGT and check your exhaust gas temp to verify the right gas is in it before you cut out.

just a thought.

 

Been pondering this conversion myself for a long time, but not being the electronic guru, I didn't know whether the fender module would still need to be used. From your pictures, I see it's been totally removed!

 

Oh yeah. Couldn't be simpler to set it up - stab it in there, hook up one nice fat +12 wire, time it and go.

 

very easy to install HEI. only 1 wire running to it and timing. =)
plus of course if you wanna do some timing curve for response, but not necessary to make it run "good". i would deffinately run an excel supoer coil, high volt wires and platinum plugs. thats all i run..

 

The platinum plugs are nice if for no other reason than it sucks to change them in a Maverick and you want to postpone that as long as possible!

 

you wanna sell that duraspark setup?

 

Sure. It's not pretty, but I'll put it in a box for you...

 

What is the list of required parts for the Ford Electronic Ignition (I have the distributor and pick-up with pigtail)
Can it be brought up to date with the latest (pre EFI) ignition?

 

If you have the distributor, all you need to make the car run with it is an ignition module. Just match the orange, purple and black wires coming out of the distributor with the same color wires on the ignition module. Green wire goes to the negative side of the coil, red goes to switched 12 volt power. White can go to the S terminal on the solenoid, or you can just leave it disconnected.

For optimal performance, get an aftermarket coil and make sure you have a full 12 volts going to the coil. Not sure what you mean by the latest electronic ignition. If you have a Duraspark distributor instead of a Duraspark II, you can get the adapter and put a Duraspark II cap and rotor on it.

 

The distributors are all the same, it's the boxes that are different, along with some slight moving of some wires within the plugs from year to year.

The DS 2 cap can go on many stock distributors, including points.
Just need both parts.

The most common and easiest box to use is the one with the blue grommet around the wires.

They all work very similarly though, and hook up the same for the main wires. Some years or emissions areas had more wires, but never less than what you pointed out.

Oh, I did find out that if you have a DS 1 box, which was only one year and only in Kali, you need a specific coil. The DS 1 could cycle the coil faster than DS 2, so a regular electronic coil would overheat at low rpm.
With any of the DS systems, you need an electronic ignition specific coil to get full voltage potential.
A points coil is not interchangeable if you want the high voltage features of the electronic systems.

Another point that should be made:
Ford electronic ignition before 76 or 77 was called 'Solid State Ignition', not 'Duraspark'.
The name Duraspark was used for one year in Kali, the first year of the name, and the regular SSI had the name changed to DS2 sometime that year.

Sorry to get long winded.
Just that I spent the past week researching all this in order to set up the best DS system I could with what I had.
I put it out there to hopefully help someone.

Edit:
The way to tell a DS1 box is a red wire grommet.
This is a killer system, but requires a special coil as I commented.

The yellow grommet box has an extra pigtail to hook up an adjustable timing retard. Can retard timing 0* to 6* depending on input.

All the boxes retard timing 4* to 10* (depending on which box) for easy starting. But only if you hook up the start sensing wire...

 

Why? I drove my '74 Grabber for over a month with the Duraspark II stuff hooked to the stock points coil.