slvr98camaro

iTrader: (1)

basically whoever had the car before me put an HEI distrib on.. i have no idea why, but now i have to deal with it

the spark is very weak on the car (plugs are firing orange)

basically the setup is an HEI distrib with a mallory "power cell"

im trying to figure out why the spark is so weak, and i see that there are two cloth wires, i am told that these are resistance wires, and that is what could be causing my weak spark.. does this hold true?

can anyone tell me what exactly this power cell does? i looked up a little explanation, but i would like more

i basically have all of the wires taken apart across the engine bay right now, and i can either take these cloth wires out, or leave them in.. i need to take the distrib out because it is blocking me from viewing the rest of the wiring harnass.

one of these wires is coming from the fuse box and going to the 12v hookup from the distributor, and i have no idea where the other goes.. but if i can get more info on what these wires are for that would be great

sorry if im not making sense, its kinda late and i have been playing with this damn car all night

thanks!

ZONES89RS

iTrader: (25)

Sounds like one of those things you gotta play with. Use a voltage meter and see what the power "on" looks like to the coil.

cnorton

iTrader: (1)

GM cars that were factory equipped with breaker-points ignitions had a cloth-covered "resistor" wire that dropped the current before it reached the points inside the distributor. Even earlier cars had a ceramic ballast resistor that accomplished the same thing. You didn't mention the vintage of the wiring loom/car that you're working on but that wire should not be use to feed power to the HEI ignition. A straight 12 volt feed will work. You didn't mention the style of the HEI but it would seem logical that the Mallory unit was a hotter coil package that was marketed to enhance the output of the ignition. Typically, those kinds of coil upgrades were not all that necessary. If you want to go back to an all-stock HEI to sort things out, it shouldn't be a problem as long as you have the original coil inside the HEI cap. Pictures would help clear up some of the questions.

Good luck

slvr98camaro

iTrader: (1)

thanks, the mallory power cell is not a coil, i am still using the regular in cap coil

as of right now, i have totally eliminated the cloth wire, i have a wire hooked up to a wire comming from the fuse box that is 12v

i have also totally eliminated my kill switch, and the mallory "power cell"

so right now everything is the way it would come from the factory except for the way the 12v line is coming into the distrib.. but IMO it doesnt matter

now, the spark is still kinda weak, it is firing blue/orange/yellow

i have even put another module that i had laying around that didnt change anything

tried different plug wires off of the cap and spark didnt change

what else could it be? it seems im limited only to the "condenser" or the coil inside of the distributor

also, i have no idea if the coil is a stock GM one, or accel.. is there an easy way to tell? it has an accell cap/rotor, but gm parts inside with a gm coil cover.. so its kind of confusing

to answer your questions, the car in question is a 69' camaro with what im considering a stock wiring harness that has been tampered with greatly (and im trying to clean up)

slvr98camaro

iTrader: (1)

can you use resistor spark plugs with the HEI, or will it also give a weak spark?

doesnt really matter though, i put different plugs in, with the same results

99T/A

First every time I have seen orange fire out of the plugs it was because the ignition coil was bad. Second I have a HEI setup in my S-10 but I have it gutted. The only thing inside my HEI distributor is the pickup coil and rotor. I deleted the ignition module with a wire harness from MSD that connects directly to a MSD box. The I hooked up a MSD box and external coil. The coil those goes in the top of the cap I just took out and threw away. I have been running mine like that for 4 years on a street/strip truck and haven't had on minute of problems with it.

69SS396

I had this same problem on my 69 and the cloth wire needs to go since it cuts the volts to work with points. This drove me insane, since I also ran 12V out of the fuse box with a weak spark as well. I finally put a meter on the coil and spun it at the same time and noticed the old fuse box couldnt maintain 12V (my car wouldnt start).

I would also yank the cloth wire completely out of the fuse box.

Cheap fix was to run a relay to the coil in order to get 12v.
expensive fix.... american Autowire complete rewiring kit. $500.

goodluck

slvr98camaro

iTrader: (1)

thanks.. i actually took the engine out and im rebuilding it, and im going to drop another engine in

s/c'd cav

iTrader: (10)

i converted my 68 elco , and a 70 camaro to a hei , and all i did was grabbed the hei power wire from a 75-newer car

if you take the main engine harness out of the firewal connector , you will need a needle nose to close the spade plug lock , and pull it back through , my 68 used the same spade terminal , and you just replace the wire up to the fire wall connector

the resistance wire is removed completely when plussed from the fire wall connector , and pull the wire off that goes down to the start solenoid , which is the bypass to supply full power to the coil when cranking

if you still have a weak spark , i would check all the grounds , and batt voltage sitting and while cranking , any lower than 10.5 and your gonna have problems

another quick test is hit the dist with 12v directly from the battery , and if its fine then you have a voltage supply issue inside the car , and its dropping to much voltage somewhere

quick fix is a relay with the ign terminal to trigger the relay and 12v straight from the batt