John Lee's HEI Swap for an I6, Factory GM Dizzy (The Install)

[Sharps40]

Lets see, can't account for girlie stuff like wifie callin at 4 pm and meet me for dinner, so did my duty, ate dinner and then went to the garage! First, pulled #1 plug and watched the piston come up, stopped rotation at 10 degrees before TDC as this is the static timeing I want to start with. Marked the 10 degree setting on the tab, I just love silver Sharpies! I also marked the factory 4 degrees, but 10 is right there with the Big A for advance.



Yank the cap, yep, rotor pointin at tower/wire number one so this is the compression stroke for cylinder 1 and I am exactly 10 degrees before Top Dead Center...don't need a rag to blow out of the plug hole or a finger on the hole to feel the air, just look at where the rotor is pointin...keep it easy.



Heres the old AC plugs, running fine and the piston top is not burned, just a nice light greybrown....



New hotter Champion Plug on the left as recommended by Mr. Langdon at Stovebolt.



I gap the new plugs at a strong 45 thousands. Mr. Langdon says ya can go to 60 thou.



New plugs in and old antique coil is out.



Plug the dizzy hole after yankin it and scrape off the old rotted dizzy base gasket.



New and old Dizzies on the bench. I greased the dizzy hole, the new dizzy gear and back to my old school ways, cut a new dizzy base gasket from felpro stock. No sense payin $3 for one I can make from a nickles worth of gasket stock.

[Sharps40]

I dropped the dizzy in twice, first try the oil pump drive didn't line up, rotor too much counter clockwise....rotated the rotor a bit clockwise and dropped it in with the rotor pointin close to Cylinder one...lightly clamped the dizzy base with the clamp screw.



Looking in the dizzy, rotor off, there are six inner nipples that fire the plug when they all line up with the six outer nipples. The nipples are out of line.



Rotate the dizzy body so the six inner nipples line up with the six outer nipples. If I had power now, the number one plug would fire at 10 degrees BTDC. Just what I want.



Put on the rotor and cap. I numbered the towers, 153624, the 230 I6 firing order...rotor is pointing at/ready to fire cylinder 1 remember.....its marked 1 and the others consecutively in firing order.



Unravel the wireing tape from the old coil to the bulkhead connector and then down to the starter. There are two wires to remove from the harness, 12 volt power (yellow) from starter to coil and resister (white cloth covered) from bulkhead to coil. The remaining wires are from bulkhead to starter, bulkhead to oil sender and bulkhead to water sender, they stay in the harness.



Here is the bulkhead connector...remove the yellow wire and the white cloth covered wire...(the white cloth covered wire turned brown and black from dirt, but its white up near the bulkhead connector). As indicated above, all the other wires in this bulkhead connector are retained to run idiot lights, etc.



This is the single pin that the yellow and white cloth covered wire eventually connect to in the bulkhead, remove it and scavenge the connector for reuse.



I soldered the scavenged bulkhead connector to a pretty yellow 12g wire to connect to the coil of my new HEI. This provides full time 12 volts unlike the old white cloth covered wire which reduced points voltage after warm up to keep the points from burning. No Points anymore, we can run full ignition switched power to the HEI coil.

[Sharps40]

I hooked up the bulkhead to the firewall and taped it all back up, routing it down the valve cover just like original. This end need another connector soldered on it to plug in at the BAT terminal of coil in cap on the Dizzy.



Soldered and finished wrapped the BAT connector for the coil. Before hook up to the dizzy I switched on the key, all the idiot lights work, water, oil, alt, etc....back out front, full 12.2 volts to the BAT Terminal of the new HEI Dizzy...Cool, So far so good and nothing broken.



I plug the dizzy wireing harness into the bottom of the coil in cap. I plug in the new 12g 12v thru the bulkhead ignition switched wire to the BAT Terminal of the coil in cap....I plug the vacuum advance (ported vacuum, its a stock cam...I'd try manifold vacuum if it was a radical cam) for initial start up and to verify my timeing setting.



Camera stops the motion but its warmin up.



I kicked the pedal once. No choke at all. Three revolutions and the engine fired. It idles noticeably smoother. Checking the timing warm, vacuum advance plugged, 9 Degrees BTDC, I rotated the new dizzy for 10 degrees BTDC and locked it down firm.

After it was warm, I ran the engine, mechanical advance works fine. Hooked up the vacuum advance, and that works fine too. So, road test.

WOW OH WOW did the engine ever wake up. Smooth acceleration. No bogging or loss of power on hills. I got some drivin to do and a carb to change out to vet this all out but I am impressed. Don't know if it added a buncha power but is sure is noticeably more responsive to inputs from the pedal. Guess what? Drivin to work tomorrow and drivin to breakfast and drivin for lunch and takein the long way home...out 690 behind bragg and up Rt 1 where I can open it up a bit! Woo Hoo! Thank you Mr. Langdon for all yer advice!

[Sharps40]

What a fine ride to work this morning. Cold start was easy. Just to see if it'd work I did not kick the gas pedal or even pull the choke. Simply turned the key. A few revolutions of the starter and the engine fired right off and almost immediatly went to a much smoother idle than previously with the old points dizzy. I spect this is a lil bit HEI and a lil bit timed better.

Power and responsiveness all the way to work, 38 miles one way, was just as it was last evening on the test ride...very nice. Power comes on smoother with no bobbles or skips in the engine. I note the truck seems to pull the hills in third a bit stronger...there was a noticable roll back in power with the old points dizzy. That roll back seems to be gone now.

Hot idle at the stops was the most noticeable change. Decent before with some roll and vibration but now, butter smooth. At the first light or so, I goosed the gas cause I wasn't sure if the engine was still running. Made a gas stop midway and the hot restart was as easy as the cold start. The old Rochester B carb had puked a bit while tanking up but a kick in the gas pedal cleared it out and right back to a smooth bobble free idle.

I think I'll leave the initial timeing at 10 degrees BTDC for a few hundred miles. Get the carb on and a good tune before I start bumping up the static advance. Mr. Langdon says run it up to 18 degrees...hard to figure it'll go that far but theres no reason not to walk the advance up and down a bit to see what the engine and my driving style likes.

All this is pretty impressive given I'm still running a very tired and over rich Rochester B that pukes about every 2nd shut down. But Weber DGV should arrive this evening and maybe by this weekend I'll be down to final tuneing and layin in tubes for the dual pot master upgrade.

[TJ's Chevy]

A better plug would be the ngk 6es or 4es spark plugs. I use them on my truck. Gaped at .50 and a cheap pertronix and still burns the 600 cfm worth of fuel going in! Might wanna look into it. T.J. Nice hei! I'm gonna put a Davis Unified ignition on mine. It puts out 50,000 volts!!!

[Sharps40]

Those champs seem pretty good and the motor seems right happy with em. Right now I'm learnin to pay attention to the Keeper of the Magic Smoke, Mr. Langdon at Stovebolts. When I don't do what he says, things don't run as well. So for now, the champs are in and one day if they ever wear out, ACs or Ngk might go in for a try.

[TJ's Chevy]

I'm glad your talking to Mr.Langdon! He is full of advice and wisdom, but very conservative also. He told me that a great budget build for my 292 would be a stock rebuild, 500 cfm edelbrock mounted on a Clifford with headers and a 5 speed! And it's true! The intake, carburator, and header were almost a $1,000 setup!!! But I'm going to be doing the inside to. The guy I talk to is Mike at ravens wood paint and body, just like Tom in the info part.