Hey peeps, my first post here because I need some advice on my friend's 1970 corvette with a 454.

It has an edelbrock fuel injection conversion kit and an accel super coil HEI distributor. The car was running, and we took the intake off while doing some work. The distributor came out but before we did that we marked the distributor position as well as the position of the rotor. Everything went back together the same no problems, but it wouldn't start. Checked some stuff out and there is no spark at all.

Now, the way it was and the way we reconnected everything, the red power wire going to the B+ terminal on the HEI, and a green, I think ground, wire going to the C- terminal. Tested those wires and the power one is putting out a solid 12 volts with the ignition on and grounded to the block. Grounding it to the green wire, its showing 6.something volts. When the red wire is grounded to the green when its connected to C- (yellow internal wire) there is 0 volts.

Not exactly sure whats going on and we've double checked everything multiple times, so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

What exactly is the green wire connected to? That wire would normally hook up to a tachometer. But, the Vette has a mechanical cable driven tach, not an electrical one. Or, has an aftermarket tach been added to the car?
And were you connecting those wires together, or jumping them with a test meter between them?
You have 12 volts with the ignition "on". But did you also check for voltage with the key in the full start position?

 

Not exactly sure what the green wire is connected to, it just goes into the wiring harness. And I wasn't actualy connecting the wires together, just testing between them with a multimeter. Except in the case of hooking up the green wire to the yellow wire (C- post) that goes into the coil. When I test between the connected wires and the 12v wire, it reads 0

No, I haven't tested them with ignition in full start. We'll give that a shot and see what it reads

So you are saying that the C- post is usually hooked up to a tach? or just green wires in general? Do you know if the center post (which connects to the metal base of the coil itself) needs to be grounded, or not?

Looking through the Edelbrock manual for this fuel injection kit, there's supposed to be an actual harness connector, but instead whoever had this before ditched that plug and hooked some wires up directly to the posts. Apparently it worked before we took it apart, but now we're just confused.

Thanks for the help.

 

All you need to wire up the HEI distributor to make it run is the red power lead to the "BAT" terminal, that's it. The green wire is for a tach, so trace that wire if you can and see where it leads to. You say it goes into the wiring harness, but that wire wouldn't have been a factory wire for the tach, since that Vette's factory tach is not an electrical one. Is it a factory harness, or part of the conversion? And I wouldn't go jumping wires together like you did, you're putting power in places where it might not want to go. And when you were testing for power, you weren't able to get readings because you weren't jumping to ground with the other wires. I know this is a dumb question, but did you reconnect the pickup lead that jumps from the distributor base to the cap (opposite side of power hookup)? Make sure all the dist. wiring is on and connected well. Did you look inside the distributor cap to make sure the center button that rides on the rotor spring tab didn't fall out? It's rare, but it could happen. Also lift the rotor tab up some to make sure you don't have a contact issue, just in case someone was leaning on it before. One more thing, you put the distributor back in and lining up like before you took it apart. Are you positive the engine didn't get tapped over at all while it was apart? It's just too weird that it ran before and now you have no spark.

 

First off, thanks for the in depth reply.

I was sure not to just go connecting wires ***** nilly. We hooked them back up the way they were hooked up before. This green tach wire was probably just bunched into an existing harness or something....I really don't know.

As for the pickup lead, yes, we reconnected that harness, although we could probably check those connections. As far as the position of the distributor, I'm very sure that the engine was never turned over prior to reinstalling the distributor, but I will check for #1 TDC and make sure. Plus, even if the distributor was out of alignment, there should still be spark, right? We've tested it and there's nada spark from the wires. I also double checked that the spring/button in the middle is making contact with both the coil and the distributor.

I agree, this is weird, and its been very frustrating. It worked before and now its not and we've banged our heads against the wall for hours. I will try fiddling with the rotor tab and checking the pickup lead connection. Other than that, I'm not sure what we're going to do but maybe try another distributor/coil.

 

You're welcome. I'm just throwing ideas out there as they come to me.
You originally said you took the intake off while doing some work. What kind of "some work" were you doing?
Did you check yet to see if there is still 12 volts going to the distributor while trying to start the engine? And for fun, disconnect the green wire from the dist. and see if that makes a difference. Even if the timing was way off, you should still be registering a spark, just at the wrong time. What are you using to test for spark?

 

Work done was replacing some pushrods, guideplates, and rocker arms. One pushrod had broken and had fallen into the lifter valley, hence the need to remove the intake.

Tested spark by touching one end a screwdriver to one of the distributor plug wire posts and the other end held near a ground. Tested several of them, no luck. Any which way, my buddy is out of town for a few days for the 4th of July weekend, so we're gonna sit tight for a while. I'll try some more stuff next week and will report the results then. Thanks for the help.