HEI Conversion for P76 or Rover V8

[solihl]

OK, for those that are interested this is what i needed to fit an HEI to the P76 (tall deck rover) V8.
First there was the two donor distributers, with the std rover for comparison,



This is the buick V6 that supplied the body for the conversion



and this is the OldsmobileV8 dizzy that supplied the shaft with chopper & reluctor



As you can see the reluctor etc unbolts easily and is a direct swap, once the shafts are removed. This was easy, knock out the pin, remove the drive gear, plenty of CRC and out they came.
Once the rover and HEIs areput together the size difference becomes obvious as you can see from this photo,



and i wondered if this space was big enough



Well after a lot of grinding of the intake manifold it was



The Hyprid dizzy is topped off with a chev rotor and cap, and being a cheap bastard i changed the plug ends on the old leads to suit the HEI cap. I also fitted an aftermarket centrifugal advance kit to recurve the advance, it now comes in very quick and has 20 degrees at 4000rpm. You can see in the next photo the fitted kit and the grinding required to fit this to a tall deck motor. I would expect it to fit in the std rover easier as the manifold would be below the dizzy height.



Another photo of grinding reqd,



and finally a photo of how tight the top hose is to the cap.



The main thing is that it does fit and has transformed the starting and running of this old rangie.

[img]http://www.enzemble.co.nz/solihl/Solihl_melb[1].jpg[/img]

Plugs are now gapped to .050" and it never misses a beat and with good scrounging skills the whole conversion cost under $200 and took about three hours all up (once all the bits and pieces were sourced).
On both petrol and LPG is now starts and runs fine, and feels to have more torque which could be in part due to the changed advance curve, but i beleive that the HUGE spark from the HEI makes the biggest difference. I have only done about 100km on it so far but i pulled the plugs last night and they look as clean as new (they are 18 months old), so things look good.

Kevin

[Athalus78]

THat is a real good idea espicailly as my leyand is oversized and still running the standard dizzy and plugs just 10mm proracing leads.I deffinetally think that this will make some major difference to the engine.
All I have to do know is find the parts

[GrumpyOldB]

Here's the story of an HEI conversion that did not work - or has not yet, just so anyone thinking about this will know of the down side.

Encouraged by this post, and other Rangie owners I've met, I bought a second hand Chev HEI & had the base mount modified to fit into the engine. The Chev base is taller that the Buick, so it sits clear of most obstacles & hardly needed any grinding. So far so good.

Wired it up, started it and wow - it ran. Set the timing & all seemed well, so I set off on a test drive. Bad plan. It's 10pm on a wet night. Got 3km away from home and it died. Would not re-start. Dead as a dodo. Walked home, got the Lucas dizzy off the garage floor, walked back & fitted Prince of Darkness dizzy in the dark. Set timing by guess, hit starter & we are away.

Took HEI to the guy who tunes my Rangie for LPG & he said he knew nothing about them, but the auto electricians nearby did. Took HEI there where it was tested & pronounced to be just fine. Eventually put it back into Rangie, hit starter & it went. Warmed it up, stopped it to connect timing light & it won't start. At least it was not out on the road this time. Abandoned it until another night. Tried again - still dead. Re-fitted Lucas...

Left HEI on the shelf for several months, until I found someone else who said he knew about HEI dizzys. Described the symptoms to him & he suggested a dodgy module was the culprit. So the module got replaced, and he found the last module had been fitted without heat-sink paste. Maybe that was it...

Re-fitted HEI & hit starter. It fired up sort of - like on two or three cylinders... Stopped it. Tried again... same. Back to expert 2, who decided to come around & look. Same outcome. Expert 2 hauls out a plug & finds it sooty & wet with unburned fuel. Says we need clean plugs. They were a fresh set for this round of HEI fitting. Removed plugs for cleaning, and HEI as I needed a working 4WD. Re-fitted Lucas & old plugs... Damn Rangie ran just fine all weekend.

To be continued... I'm probably nuts, but won't give up. Will take the whole lot down to Expert 2's garage...

[SupraLux]

Gotta love those intermittent electronic faults... good luck with it

[Rangielux]

The HT section of your ignition is where you get all your spark power from, so a good feed and coil should provide a good spark. HEI (high energy ignition systems?) systems are ok but others are as good. The low tension side is just a trigger (as in HEI also), it has nothing really to do with the output power of the ignition. I used a pertronics system on a 3.5 with good results. A HEI is not the b all and end all is what I'm trying to say

[GrumpyOldB]

Thanks Rangielux.

The feed was the first thing suggested, so I rewired out to the dizzy just in case. No difference.

The coil has been checked & is said to be fine. It looks near new as well.

Anyway, since the last update, it's been to the garage, and after a lot of experimenting, it can now be started, provided the spark is well advanced. At that setting it won't pull the skin off anything, but once started , the timing can be reset to TDC and it runs quite well. Turn it off and it won't restart properly - runs on about 3 cylinders if i'm lucky.

As Supralux suggests - some kind of intermittent fault somewhere - a real bugger to find.

I was not after the ultimate dizzy - just something better, and more water resistant than the Lucas, which I had modified to make it better sealed (no improvement) or the Lumenition converted Lucas I also tried.

So far this has cost me over $500 and it still does not bloody work.

[GrumpyOldB]

Now the HEI has gone off to Christchurch to somebody who can check the profile of the module to see why it behaves so strangely....

Meanwhile I'm looking at diesel Patrols & Prados on Trademe.. I've about had enough of all this

[Sadam_Husain]

Now the HEI has gone off to Christchurch to somebody who can check the profile of the module to see why it behaves so strangely....

Meanwhile I'm looking at diesel Patrols & Prados on Trademe.. I've about had enough of all this

I had a few problems with my HEI, it was a pretty grubby old looking one and after spending a week mucking around with it I took the easy option of spending $300 on a new off the shelf one. The guy talked me into buying a genuine USA HEI and not a cheapie off TM, when I got the flash USA brand one it was manufactured in taiwan

[GrumpyOldB]

Thanks for your comments Sadam_Husain. I was wondering if I should have bought new from the start. Easy to be wise after the event.

But, from what I know now I'm not sure if I would even try a new HEI.

The trip to Christchurch was a bit of a waste of time, as it has only confirmed that this HEI dizzy for no apparent reason shifts the timing forward when running. Which means the timing can be set to allow it to start or run OK, but not both. We still don't know why...

And the CH CH guy says he has run into the same issues with a brand new HEI from a local Chev parts supplier.

So, it's back to Joe Lucas who is proving surprisingly reliable right now...

[DJ]

and this is the OldsmobileV8 dizzy that supplied the shaft

and you disected a Olds dist, how could you .... I have been hunting the country for a Olds HEI ... you havent, or know, where I can get a another ... or whats left of the dist can I replace the shaft ??
cheers DJ

[GrumpyOldB]

The HEI finally works.... After all the "experts" failed, I posted here & on another forum, and got a clue from the other post which tied in with some other info I found by googling.

So I replaced the pickup coil that triggers the module and it now works just fine. It's been in for two weeks now & done 500km without missing a beat. Touch wood - it's cured. The HEI does seem to give it a bit more grunt, but I need to get the LPG mixture adjusted.

Solihul: thanks for the tip on connecting the LPG sender unit to the tacho output. The aforementioned experts all said that would not work either! Bloody hell.

Grumpy