Ok guys I have a problem that has me at my wits end, I'm working on a 71' camaro with a 350 in it. When the car was bought it had a"fresh rebuild on it" every thing on the car looked really good and engine compartment looked all stock. The problem was that it was a 2 barrel carb. Got ahold of summit and order a 650cfm carb and a air-gap intake, installed those with no problems.

Here is where the problemis, i went and bought a summit HEI distributor to get rid of the old points and coil system. I didnt look at the firing order when i pulled the old distributor out (didnt think that i would need to). Brought the motor up to TDC when i dropped in the new distributor, pointed the rotor at #1 on the cap and ran the firing order as follows 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. When I tried to start it, it backfired and wont run i figured that I had it 180 out (done that many times lol) so I repeated my steps again (TDC, rotor pointing at #1) and still the same popping and miss firing? I even moved all the plug wires one spot over (both ways) on the cap in case i was off a tooth when i dropped the distributor in.

The car ran fine when it had the points installed, when i was pulling the plug wires off i wasnt really paying attention but i did stop at moment and thought to myself that i thought the firing order was a little weird but could go back and look at it cause i had all the wires off by that time. So Im not really sure where to go from here? Anybody have any ideas? Thanks and Happy holidays!!!

 

It does sound like it is firing order. I am not sure what you are doing wrong. You can pick up a HEI spark tester to make sure the spark is hot enough. Are you using the same power feed as the points used? GM uses a resistance wire to reduce the voltage to the points. HEIwants a full 12 volts. Normally you just run a new wire.

 

You know what I didnt run a new wire. I didnt know the stock one was restrective? There was two wires running to the stock coil and i tried them both and had the same result I even ran them both at the same time and had no luck. I will have to trying running a new one tomorrow, where is the best place to run it to? And thank you for the fast response!

 

This may help a lot.... http://www.classiccarauto.com/impala...tributor.shtml

Take note of this part....

Don't forget the number one cylinder firing position on the GM HEI distributor is at 5:30 on the clock face, not 6:30 like the classic chevy breaker points distributor. You will find that these distributors are interchangeable when you position the rotor where it belongs for each.

 

If you had 2 wire going to the positive side of the coil the primary one whould be around 9-10 volts the second would come from the starter and would only have power while the starter was engaged that would be 12 volts. You can rid of the second wire once HEI is working.