292 hei dist,.

darrell

Well-known member
anybody ever have anything to do with one of those conversions.theres one for sale in my area.its a y dist, with gm top end.its tach drive and cheap.
 
make sure you can turn the dist shaft with your fingers, remove cap and check centrifical advance weighs and springs, check the vacuum advance pot to see if the diafram is leaking and it advances the timing what im trying to say is check every thing inside the dist to see if all work, if its a good one you will see a difference in the performance of the engine, usually a 2 to 3 hundred rpm gain at idle, the best and cheapest h/p gain you can find, your going from a 25000 volt charge to around 50000 at the plugs with that dist, better fuel burning, more power
 
anybody ever have anything to do with one of those conversions.theres one for sale in my area.its a y dist, with gm top end.its tach drive and cheap.

A gm is clockwise rotation will that work in a y block??

R
 
make sure you can turn the dist shaft with your fingers, remove cap and check centrifical advance weighs and springs, check the vacuum advance pot to see if the diafram is leaking and it advances the timing what im trying to say is check every thing inside the dist to see if all work, if its a good one you will see a difference in the performance of the engine, usually a 2 to 3 hundred rpm gain at idle, the best and cheapest h/p gain you can find, your going from a 25000 volt charge to around 50000 at the plugs with that dist, better fuel burning, more power

FYI, secondary voltage output is determined by voltage required to jump the plug gap, and no more. Thus if only say, 15,000 volts is needed to fire the plug, that is all the coil will deliver. This is true even if the coil has a maximum output of 50,000 volts. As plugs wear and the gap gets larger, more voltage is required. This is when modern high voltage coils have the advantage. You can go much further on a set of plugs. High voltage coils take more current than a set of points can handle for very long. This is one reason for electronic ignition; also you can run a larger plug gap which helps eliminate misfire with the leaner mixtures in modern cars (larger gap=more space between the electrodes for a gasoline molecule to be found when the plug fires-if no gas molecule is there at the right time, you will have a lean misfire). So a high voltage coil doesn't do much good without going to a larger plug gap (you will note that Ford has gone from the .035" gap of point ignitions to over .050" with electronic ignition).
 
Rather than trying to adapt something to work on the Y Block, I would suggest that you install a Pertronix module and coil on the engine..
I have Petronix modules in three Y Blocks, 2 "59 F100's and my '57 Tbird 312..
One word of caution, you must remove the ballast resister, so that the distr has a full 12v..
 
"Vac advance will be backwards."

The flyweights will be retarding instead of advancing too, unless it's built to compensate for this.

Sal
 
that wasnt it but someone was talking about this one which has a good price and was wondering if they were any good.
 
I think he may be referring to a distributor similar to this http://www.ebay.com/itm/FORD-Y-Bloc...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2edbf5398f&vxp=mtr which should address all your concerns about fit and rotation.:cool:

While they don't say anything about replacing the carburetor on 54,55,56 that have the Load-O-Matic system that would be a consideration if your 292 is a 55 or 56. 57 up should be OK.
I have also read elsewhere that some of these are offshore made and may not be of high quality. Someone also said that some of the hi-dollar Mallory Y-Block distributors are now made offshore. Rumor on that. I don't know for sure.
 
Worth a try if its cheap - the trigger units for all of these are relatively simple and the controllers are usually based on a common GM "four pin module". The fancy studded cap - comes from an International Harvester V8 about '76 and so on.

The "real" GM HEI 4 pin controllers read the coil resistance and regulate dwell accordingly - so low OHM coils work well with them. Make sure the ignition feed wire is capable of high amps - and full voltage from the generator or alternator, which ever you run. Also make sure it is fully powered when the starter is actuated....... ;)

As mentioned earlier - the high voltages the coils are often rated for - is actually their insulation rating - not the volts produced. These dwell control distributors are focused on getting the maximum charge amps into saturating the coil (low resistance units are faster to rise) - so when she fires the spark energy is VERY HOT - not necessarily high volts (if it isn't needed). :)
 
I will add one note here. If it is one of the cheap Pro comp ones, it is pure junk. Made worse by the fact that the makers won't stand behind it.
 
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