HEI distributor for AMC 360, input on this?

[Ghost00TJ]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/AMC-J...item564192e5c1
so I find a couple on ebay for roughly $60 and they look just like Summits $210 one. I was looking into the TBI conversion but dont have the desire to mess with it; I have bored .30 over and cammed up a bit.
I have decided to go HEI when I upgrade for ease of upgrade just wondering any input from the mj'rs with some knowledge on it.

[HillBillE]

Listring has been removed.

But, I will add this. Spend the money! And get a D.U.I. (Davis Unified Ignition) or other top end dizzy, do not cheap out here, as it will cost you plenty in the long run.

I bought the 258 HEI dizzy from 4WDH, and it was a piece of crap. Only after I rebuilt the guts with OEM chev parts, did it work right.

Before that, it cost me a valve and a piston, on a fresh rebuilt motor.

After wards, with only 10K on the dizzy, the spring pin holding the drive gear to the shaft shit the bed, in Last Chance CO.

Believe me, the town of Last Chance, had it's last chance about 60 years ago. My buddy Dave towed me 50 miles to the next town.


Spend the cash on a good dizzy now, or spend it fixing your 360 later.

[jeepdreamer]

Gonna muddy the waters here a lil. HBE is correct in suggesting a QUALITY HEI unit but even at that there are a couple things to mention. If you go with the cheap one this WILL happen but the possibility is there for any newly manufactured one. The drive gears on the dizzy have grown accustomed to the drive on the cam. How many miles on your engine? If you run a cheap HEI, the likelyhood of it having a too hard drive gear is really good. Running that on the softer cam will result usually in a toasted cam, brngs, and usually several other items leading up to catastrophoic failure. Not worth it.
Even the hi-end ones may or may not have an issue. Likely not but its still a potential risk.
Then there are other options for ignition upgrades. Less expensive ones that depending on which side of the fence your on may or may not make more power. Google Team Rush Upgrade and be prepared to read. There is a LOT of intel out there on doing this easy, reletivly inexpensive upgrade with good results and common parts. The TFI set up is like what AMC SHOULD have stolen from Fords parts bin when they were at it. Instead they chose a cheaper and less reliable and underpowered ignition system that came on our heeps.

[irish1371]

It has been 20 yrs since I worked on the v-8's in my javlins but if i remeber correctly most of the spinners now come with the softer bronze gear where you want the harder ductile iron oem style. You can make the bronze work but its a pita. bronze is a pouros metal and you need to leave the gear in a cup of motor oil for a week or so, it will actually impregnate the gear with oil. Much safer in the long run to use the oem.

one main problem with them eating cam gears is the end play on the dist. make sure to gauge it and make it in spec, tigher side if you can. also make sure your cam is not walking back and forth, usually signs of shinny spot on the inside of the cam cover.

your timming set must be in good shape, slop here just makes everything else happen faster. we would judge by the mileage/use on the engine before ripping down. if we found the timming set to be trashed but the engine was not totally abused then we would open the front oil galley with a 1/16 drill bit(yea dont break the dam thing) that way some oil sprays directly on the chain set.( this is done at your discresion, too small a hole not worth the time, too big loss of oil pressure, screw it up and a real pita to fix)

any chance at using a dist machine and checking your total adv? most come with too much- we would braze the slot shut some then grind it out till the needed amount of adv was achieved.

if you want to set the valves to zero lash then the pinion spacers for a ford 9 and tin snips make the perfect sized spacer to raise the rocker studs to get them to zero lash

[Ghost00TJ]

we just rebuilt this shouldn't be any slop anywhere, it all gauged on the tight side of the tolerances allowed. Didnt drill holes for the timing gears-1st time I read that was here, wish I would of read it when it was torn apart lol.

We ran it for 20 minutes or so to break in the cam and that was it, I would hope the new cam has a good gear on it Erksen.

[HillBillE]

The TFI upgrade (pretty sure that's what the 'Team Rush' thing is) works great also. I had done this first on my CJ, then went to HEI for the 1 wire hookup.

Honestly, couldn't tell the difference between the HEI and the TFI in performance, starting and running.

But both were a big jump over the stock set up.

With a new cam, you should be OK, as long as the dizzy end play is good.

But read up on it. I know when I was researching it, a lot of the V8 guys were having the problems mentioned above, with the gears on the dizzy. Either to soft, or to hard.

You may be able to replace the new gear with the one from the original dizzy, but that will depend on shaft size and if it fits.

I know the 258 guys were doing this when using Chev 6 banger HEI dizzys for a 'Junkyard HEI'

[C130Hilgy]

I have to agree, spend the money for the DUI or you will have all the problems listed above and possibly more. I have over 120,000 miles on my DUI in a 304 with cam and pistons and reworked heads and intake. I used the gear that came on the DUI with no problems.

[CJ7nvrstk]

Wow, that's a great price. No experience with that particular model but everyone above has stated some very valid points. Mebee give it a shot if you don't stray too far from home or if you trailer your Jeep. I would also question reliability before trusting it.

[Ghost00TJ]

I called them, seems good and lifetime warranty(does a lot of good) if you trash your motor and get a new distributor in return lol. I've been through a few write ups on this, Team Rush and tbi conversion, not doing the tbi too many problems it seems that leaves TR and HEI. Local guy has done hei and loves it so I think thats what I'm goen to try out.

Thanks all for the input

[CutterN55]

Jeepdreamer had some real good advice and I agree with all of it. I will be doing the Ford TFI myself here soon. This is a highly recommended mod by the FSJ crowd.