The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay HEI swap problems

Joe, just to be sure you didn't get mixed up way back on this post. PLEASE look at your distributor one more time and tell me what are the three colors that actually come out of the distributor as you received it.

The reason I ask is because in those instructions you posted they talk about a BROWN wire. That Brown wire is a wire that is already on the vehicle they are speaking of. On a 55-57 Chevy, there is a a brown wire that went to the ballast resistor. They are saying that this wire is attached to the new coil positive terminal. It is NOT a wire from the distributor. I am now wondering if you got mixed up. I hope you actually have a orange wire and have not mentioned it.
You have said that your distributor has three wires coming out of it: Black, Red and Brown. Please conform this.

The MSD "ready to run" distributor, which this seems to copy, is wired: Red to coil positive, orange to coil Negative and Black to chassis ground. None of the "ready to run" clones have a brown wire.

This is what you said: "There are three wires that come out of the distributor, red, black and brown." I would need to see a picture of that to believe it. You are not color blind are you? Some men are color blind. It's not a joke.

The part number for the distributor kit that I ordered from ecklers (lategreatchevy.com) is 169699. I verified the wire color that I have and attached a picture of it. The wires coming out of the distributor are red, black and brown.

Speedmaster has been hard to get a hold of to verify the wiring for the red black and brown. I'll update as soon as I have something from them.

OK good. I am probably loosing track of this but now it seems you are using a distributor from Ecklers. You did mention Speedmaster. So why did you mention Speedmaster and where did you buy the distributor you are actually trying to use?

If the distributor is from Ecklers, that is where you get the answer about how to wire it. NOT from Speedmaster.

I have received a email from Speedmaster. They know nothing about a brown wire, their unit has red, orange and black.

JOE, if you want help...........monitor this post several times a day.

The first unit I bought was from Ecklers. After I burned that one out I went directly to Speedmaster since that is what Ecklers was selling and the second unit is from Speedmaster. So, the one I am trying to use is from Speedmaster. That is who I am working with to get the replacement part from.

So which one is in the picture? Does one distributor have Red brown black and the other has something else? Are you using the same 3 wire harness for the Speedway and the Ecklers or did both distributors come with the brown wire?

Both are exactly the same. Both came with the brown wire. The wires on both are directly connected to the magnetic pickup without a plug in between.

Wow that is really odd. I don't get why they did that.

I did get an email from Speedmaster. He ignored the part about the brown wire and just told me how to wire RED ORN BLK. So I wrote back a terse email to get him to respond about Brown wire from Ecklers and from Speedway according to your posts. I am relating to him as a person who bought both distributors. As a customer who needs help. I will let you know, it seems to take a long time. But I understand everyone is working from home.
Let me know what you find out in writing.

GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Joe,
Speedmaster wrote to me and said BROWN is negative coil. So it is same as Orange.
So that would seem to be Red to coil positive. Brown to coil negative. Black to chassis ground.

He has been answering your emails better than mine. Thank you for following up with him. I’m still waiting on the replacement pickup that they are supposed to be sending. As soon as that gets here I’ll wire it in according to the directions you were able to get.

Great news. I finally got the replacement distributor in. I have installed it and this time wired it correctly with red to coil positive, brown to coil negative and black to chassis ground. It fired right up and after fine tuning the timing the truck is running like a charm. Thank you to all who commented and helped me figure out my mistake and find the solution.

Fantastic news. Very happy you got it running good. Good job Joe.

Great news to find out a hard fought battle had a positive outcome.🛠