so i started reading up on these, came across this website that does a pretty clean conversion with their bracket.

http://www.designed2drive.com/

reading up on it and it seems that its pretty good for the most part, read both good and bad points, just wondering if I should pull the trigger. My car has all brand new parts on it now, and new wiring, its a 470 stroker, running a firecore distributor and a REVVNATOR ECU box. I like the fact you can take out the ballast resistor, one less headache to worry about.

I have a single ballast resistor, to eliminate this for HEI, do you just jumper the two wires together?

Also which HEI would you recommend?

I've also read that this distributor - MSD Ignition 8386 - MSD Billet & Pro-Billet Distributors, you can eliminate the ballast resistor and the ECU box, how does that work? Also how do you hook this up with our stock wiring?

should I sell what i got and get this msd 8386? looking forward to your thoughts! thanks!

I did this on my Coronet. I used the designed2drive piece and it worked out well. Haven't put a lot of miles on it yet but it did make it start better and seems to run cleaner

I ditched the stock ECU/resistorsetup in favor of a DynaMod HEI-module and MSD e-core coil.
Kept the stock electronic distributor.
Hooked it up through a relay so the module gets full battery power at all times.

I mounted the HEI-module on the inner fender on a PC cpu-coolingblock.


Shown below is a stock HEL-module which I replaced with a hotter version from DUI Dynamod;




http://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/dui-000222/overview/

I have read that if you do the HEI conversion, you must mount it with some sort of heat transfer, the pc-cpu is a good idea, I was wondering about that since the one website that provides the bracket doesn't mention anything about cooling the HEI

also what did you guys do to the wires that use to go on the ballast resistor?

You use radio shack heat sink paste, they sell it in a mini tube which is plenty for cheap, a moderately thin even coat of it between the HEI and the alum plate it is mounting to. the designedtodrive piece looks pretty but is pricey for what you get, I'd just get a piece of aluminum & cut/trim/deburr/paint one yourself & some minor drilling/tapping. the original '75 chebby OE black HEI module works good and the speedway motors dynamod gets good reviews. use a full 12V coil & I'd suggest an E coil. yes connecting the wires on each end of the ballast bypasses it. do what you need to do for a clean installation. be sure & max out the dist adv systems for a spot on job

I have been running HEI distributors in small blocks for many years by cutting the bottom off of a Chrysler dist and an hei, welding them together, and cutting the shaft to length grinding the end for the drive! Now they are available as a new billet style as a drop in for both bb and sb , and can be found fairly cheap on ebay! now granted they are not top end race components but seem to work well!

I did this conversion for the Ramcharger racer. I had bought a Mallory CD box with a built in Rev Limiter, but ended up using it in my daily driver D-100 with a rebuilt '74 dist with a vacuum can (the original '87 dist did not have one). So now I needed an ignition for the racer and went with the designed2drive.com piece for the RB electronic dist. I recommend you strip the dist down and tap the mounting holes from the inside, as the 10-32 NF tap will go straight that way. When you put it back together, clean and lube the shaft with some light grease first. It is incredibly easy to do , better and cheaper than any Mopar alternative from the factory, no ballast to fool with, one 12 volt wire to the dist and the E-coil, etc.

O'Reilly has heat sink, if they look in a book not tap on a key board. Summit has Mallory 4 pin mod for $23, are they better than stock? Think E coil on sale also.

Summitt or O'reillys. would you have a part #

Read on one Guys' conversion story not to buy the aftermarket HEI modules, stick with a gm one.

If there is one thing I have to say gm has mastered, that is they start with barely a tap of the key..........in any weather. And if that HEI has anything to do with it, then I would run it.

The slickest set-up I've seen is the Pertronix unit, but reliability-wise, not sure, have not run one yet.

RR it was in one of the summit flyers you get in the box along with the stickers that you throw in the wood stove. MSD red e coil, sorry don't remember #.

thanks bro! I can definitely peruse the MSD coil offerings, just didn't want to go 50 pages

Or you could just run a cd ignition and have a way better ignition then an hei.
My crane cams hi-6 cd ignition and crane lx91 e-core coil only ran me 250.00 bucks.
Starts on first turn of the key every time and haven't had any issues in 2 years of running it.

Robert it might have been Mallory, I get confused now their same, but was a blow out sale less than a week ago. A small square, red coil fairly cheap.

pjc I agree cd good ignition, but livin in mt you know how far apart part stores are & 4 pin mod are every where, good deal when your walking, & takes up less room for a spare.

curious, I have the msd blaster 2 coil, is it worth going to the ecoils for this conversion?

also does using the msd distributor eliminate the use of the ecu box? I like the idea of eliminating parts, less things to go wrong, I also did the toyota denso alt. upgrade to eliminate the voltage regulator

.

basically the coil is where the power is amplified/stored/released and the ECU is pretty much just an on/off switch for the primary current that is the input for that power tho a box (ECU) has to be capable of switching however much pri current the coil is using and not electronically delay that switching which in effect retards the timing which is the "pulled timing" complaint that you hear (sometimes) on orange boxes (plus em dieing!), the newer ones that is. I cannot ans your Q, just bored on a Sat night

not sure if the msd blaster 2 requires a resistor...

The MSD e-core coil doesn't require a resistor.
The Blaster 2 canister coil does, and it wants a special resistor with matching value for the coil.

I'm running the MSD E-core coil with a HEI-module and a stock Mopar-distributor.

I will say I have put a few MSD units on my buddies cars and all of the MSD units I put on that were complete MSD units that used the MSD box never needed the ballast. They are the units that both coil primary wires go to the MSD unit.
That said I remember Mopar Muscle saying you can take the ballast out of the Mopar electronic ign units. Of course there are no points to worry about and the ECU is fed 12 volts with the key on but I was always told the Mopar ECU units still needed the ballast so the coil dont overheat. Well I plan to find out as I took my ballast out a few months ago as I use the orange Mopar ECU. I carry spare coils , ECU's and ballast so I hooked the ballast wires together and plan to see if it keeps running all this summer like this since I want to see if what Mopar Muscle said it true. Good luck with your HEI setup. Ron