Decided to perform the sacrilegious act of installing a new HEI to replace a factory coil & distributor setup to chase down a miss and a broken vacuum advance. I suppose the idea of cleaning up some extra spaghetti out of the engine bay was also a bonus. Matched timing (~10 degrees BTDC initial) up by spinning engine over until old rotor was pointed to #1 and clocking new HEI distributor the same. Tested red/green coil wire to have power on key and crank and wired to the BAT terminal on the HEI. Left green/yellow coil wire and 3-wire distributor plug disconnected.
After install it now fires up and idles when cold without complaint and runs noticeably smoother. The first test drive unfortunately revealed that it now intermittently stalls when shifting into forward/reverse from P or N (C6 auto) or coming to a complete stop in any forward gear. It will immediately re-fire and idle & rev like clockwork in P or N. Once moving in gear, it runs like a top.
Full disclosure - my kick-down linkage needs love so for now it is disconnected and gears are shifted manually from the column. No issues driving this way before HEI install. Hoping someone more familiar with these ignition systems can chime in if I am missing anything obvious. From the questionable information I've gathered on YouTube, the HEI seemed essentially plug & play with just the 12v source from the coil. (Please excuse the jank wiring; cleanup to come)
Cheers!
- EJ
1982 F-150 4x2 300ci C6 Flareside