Cheap and Easy HEI for Ford |
A lot of guys when converting from fuel injection to carb use the Duraspark II system. This
requires pulling out the TFI distributor and coil and replacing them with the
Duraspark distributor, coil, module, starter solenoid, and ballast resistor.
All that's required is a Duraspark distributor, HEI module, and coil. Because of the dwell control and current limiting circuits of the HEI you can use just about any coil you want, including the TFI coil, and no ballast resistor is needed. If you are converting from fuel injection all you will need to buy is a Duraspark distributor, HEI module, and some wire and connectors to hook it all up. The cheapest place to get the Duraspark distributor is at a junkyard or swap meet, usually $20 or less.
Duraspark distributors
Cast or Steel Gear If you want a small block distributor with a cast gear tell the parts guy you want one for a 5-speed '84 Mustang GT. For a steel gear tell him you have a 5-speed '85 Mustang GT. If the guy at the parts store has two distributors listed and doesn't know which is which, the one with the cast gear is always considerably cheaper than the one with the steel gear.
The module
You can buy one new at any auto parts store. Any good parts guy will know exactly what a four-pin HEI module is.
Although good parts guys are hard to find so you will probably need to ask for
an ignition module for a '78 Camaro with a 350. Since they are so cheap you
don't need to go to the junkyard. Besides, all the junkyards around here
wouldn't even sell me just the module, they wanted me to buy the whole HEI
distributor to get it. The module in the picture is a Car Quest #21040 and cost
me $17.77. As you can see there are four pins labeled W, G, B, and C. The G pin
is a 3/16" male spade and the rest are 1/4" male spades.
Mounting:
Wire it up:
The purple wire is run to the G pin on the module,
Like I said before you can use just about any coil you want. Basically the only coils that you can't use are aftermarket coils which are for CD (capacitive discharge) ignitions only. I recommend the TFI coil, its the square looking coil used on fuel injected Fords. They are dirt cheap and work great because they were designed for the Ford TFI which is basically the same thing as the GM HEI.
If the TFI and HEI modules are the same then why can't I use the TFI?
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