HEI module conversion

[72rtchallenger]

I was wondering if anybody has done this,,its easy to do and very cheap,,I installed one on mine and its working great,,I was wondering if there were any long term problems with the swap

[MEK-Dangerfield]

No downside. It beats points.   

[72rtchallenger]

tks for the reply,,it works great and if you install a relay thru the ground you can stop it from starting,,anti theft,,and easily done,,the hotter spark is great and over all has been great

[Super Blue 72]

I think one other member tried this and had many issues with it.  I think it was Tripple-Green? 

See this thread.  He ended up going back to the stock set up.  Might want to give him a PM to see if he still wants to try it out.  You might have some good insight since you have one in your car. 

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=59045.0

[JoltinJoe]

I think one other member tried this and had many issues with it.  I think it was Tripple-Green? 

See this thread.  He ended up going back to the stock set up.  Might want to give him a PM to see if he still wants to try it out.  You might have some good insight since you have one in your car. 

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=59045.0

Yeah but he was trying to put a GM part in a MOPAR!   

[Chryco Psycho]

I am somewhat confused as to what you are asking are you converting a small block to a GM HEI dist ??
or are you somehow adapting just the HEI module inside a Mopar dist ?
either way I see no upside to this , the GM module is known to fail , the HEI is no a great system either IMO

[72rtchallenger]

my problem was that my ballast failed and burnt the coil and a new ecu up,also my engine harness is new,changed all that out and the ecu failed again,,the ecu's are not as good as they were back in the day,made in china or someplace..so I bought a module and a blaster coil.and made a harness to the dist. an coil,and jumped the ballast wires out,I left the ecu in place but took out the prongs to leave it the stock look,with the plug still pluged on,,and with the module in place on a piece of heat sink mounted were the ballast was,,gaped the plugs to .o45 and now have a lot hotter spark and runs great,,when a ballast fails it can burn the coil and ecu up,,with the module,it can be the only componet that fails to my knowledge,,which is why I was asking if anybody had any long term problems with this setup,,so far i have had this setup for a year and no problems..I carry a spare module just in case..

[UKcuda]

I've been busy so I only just saw this.

I did a lot of research on this option and I plan to use it on my 'cuda (so much so I have already bought the module - it was about $25).

The big advantage over the Mopar units is that the HEI has current modulation which means you can bypass the ballast resistance and run any coil you like (inc. the E-core ones).  The module gives the coil all the current it can want but then clips it off when the coil is saturated (so you can't overheat the coil).  It works effectively like a variable dwell and if you use a low impedence hot coil you can re-gap the plugs to 45-50 thou and have a considerably better spark.

The better spark is available for three reasons (1) variable dwell = better coil saturation (2) 12V across the coil (3) allows use of low imp. coil.

If you search the web you'll find a lot of people have been converting the '70s and '80s Ford Duraspark systems in this way for a few years now and have not had any failure issues with the HEI modules.  The hot ticket for budget coils seems to be the Ford TFI which you can get from the breaker's yard and hooked to the HEI outperforms some of the MSD systems (allegedly).  It's rated at 0.7 ohms and 48KV (I think).

A friend of mine here in the UK runs an Aussie Charger with a Hemi six and he has done a similar conversion on that car.  I saw him racing it about three weeks back and it was going well.

I've got a busted Mopar module and I plan to take the guts out of that and mount the HEI in the back up against the stock heat sink and wire it to the stock plug.  That way it will look stock and I can swap it out easily if I want to (remembering to remove the jumper off the ballast!).

Anyway, I hope this is of interest.  I'll let you know how my system works.

[72rtchallenger]

   it works very well,,i put mine on a aluminum 1/2" thick plate and mounted were the old ballast was ,,left all the other components were they were for a stock look,just broke out the pins on the old ecu and pluged it back up,,i used a msd blaster 2 coil,,its the round cyclinder type and mounts in the stock housing