The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay HEI distributor?

Hi guys, I have been working on cars since I was a teenager, but I have very little experience on this older stuff. I don't even know exactly what High Energy Ignition even really means. Wikipedia has this to say:

"High energy ignition, also known as H.E.I., is an electronic ignition system designed by Delco-Remy Division of General Motors and introduced by General Motors around May 1974 on most GM engines. It was used on all engines in 1975 through the mid-1980"

My truck is a 67 C10, it has a 350ci motor that I am told is out of a 1974 Corvette.

So it sounds like it must be a HEI because it says Delco-Remy and is supposed to be out of a 1974. Is this a good distributor? Is it something I might want to upgrade? Does anyone want to share their wisdom with me?

That is an HEI dist. There is nothing wrong with them. Upgrade it to what? The same thing just made by somebody else. Had them in vehicles for 100,000 'S of miles only once have had a failure. I would run it just like it is. wouldn't change a think. Maybe the advance springs or weights, and shim the play in the shaft but that is it.

Perfect, thanks Tommy.

I'll grab a new cap and rotor maybe.

We can't confirm you have HEI if we can't see a picture of it.

This is an HEI cap. If yours looks like that it is HEI. If it's smaller, you have a points distributor.

HEI is very good in stock configuration and there's little you can do to make much noticeable improvement for a street vehicle.

The only 1974 HEI distributor I have seen were a 1 year wonder that had intergal wires & cap and have only seen them on Pontiac engines. 1975 HEI went across the whole G.M. line.
HEI is a very common swap to older engine so hard to say if it is o.e. to that engine. BTW, If 10% of the small blocks folks state came out of 'vettes did I would be shocked!

Hy koop85, High Energy Ignition requires a full twelve volts to work efficiently, I believe a 1967 truck has a built in resistant wire from the ignition switch out to the coil connection, check the available voltage at the ignition input to the H.E.I. if your not getting a full twelve volts there then I would rewire it to give you twelve volts there, hope that helps.

Yeah, nearly every SBC or LS motor is "Corvette" these days. I'm always skeptical when I hear that.

Mine actually did. Otherwise I wouldn't have all the stupid aluminum bracketry I had to figure out on the front of that thing. What was I thinking??

Brackets don't tell what the engine came from, stamp & cast numbers are what matters!

Hey Koop, there is so much info on the HEI system out there that I don't even know where to begin. They (HEIs) are the stand-by of most street machines and many work trucks. Your cap, if the distributor is original will NOT have the coil in the cap. The old original caps are getting hard to find so if that's what you have, I'd swap over to the coil in cap type. For your truck, run a switched 12ga wire from the ignition switch. Don't use anything else for for power. Try both vacuum ports on the carb to see which one the HEI likes. Use AC plugs and set the gap .045.

That should get you running.

best wishes,

Les