Hi To All,
My 84 Vette quit running last week. Just suddenly died for no reason. Had to tow it home. It will pop a little and is getting fuel. Been a great running car till now. It appears to be a spark problem. I put a new fuel pump, a year ago. I happen upon a distributor, It looks like the ones that work on the typical old chevy small block. I was wanting to use it on my 1984 Vette a/t. Was told I can buy adaptors to make it work.(speed shop) Also have two coils.(for the Mallory). If not I may offer it for sale. I have all the stock crossfire equipment. With the exception of larger throttle bodies and ported original intake. I have hooked up all the wires to make work like a stock set up should. This is all after a rebuilt motor. I could sell this one and just buy that shinny new one at the parts store. Coil tested fine, pick up mod tested open, per Factory service manual. Should be 500 to 1500 ohms.
Any thoughts would be a great help. Thanks, very much, Larry

Welcome to the site. I'm probably the least technical guy on here, so I cannot help on this, but maybe somoene else will chime in. I would be all for doing it the easiest way possible, with the fewest screwy work-arounds.

Hopefully you will hang out with us, and maybe introduce yourself with some pix of your Vette over in the new members section.

Edited by CentralCoaster

Larry -

I'm no expert when it come to distributors or the crossfire. Check out this site as well, it's devoted to them:

http://www.crossfire.homeip.net/

Aside from that, what leads you to believe it is a spark problem?

Good luck,

Matthew

Edited by CentralCoaster

Thank You for your replies. Very nice of you (both), to take time to reply. I made the guess that it was a spark problem, because it is getting fuel. And it pops a(VERY) little. Won't start. I opened the dist. and found it to have a few tie wraps holding the guts together. The module inside and some of the other parts, are tie wraped in place. Also has a painted dot on top of the stock dist, You know, the kind you get from salvage. I bought this Mallory dist. from a guy I know from town. Said it has low hours. It appears to be true. I went to Advance auto parts, Thinking it would be easier to replace the part that tested bad.(pick up module) and I found this distributor listed. for my 84,as a replacement. I also had the coil. And contacted a local speed shop to get the ballast resistor they said it needed. So now I need to figure out how to adapt the car wiring (ECM), and so forth to this dist. I will use the FSM to ID the wires and hope to adapt it. I will report my progress. Thanks for reading, and the kind words. Larry Breen

Larry,
I apologize for my initial response. It was an inappropriate and thankfully it and reactions to it have been removed. Hopefully you didn't get to see it.

Your posts are a little vague. Is the Mallory distributor made to be computer controlled? I am curious about the statement, "I found this distributor listed. for my 84,as a replacement.". A replacement distributor should need little or no "adapting" to your cars wiring. Trying to adapt a non computer controlled distributor to your car will be difficult at best. The stock ECM looks for pulses from the distributor to know when the engine is rotating. Without those pulses the computer doesn't know the engine is turning and among other things, won't energize the fuel pump. The ballast resister is one clue you've that you have a non computer controlled distributor. The resister is common for the old points type distributor, but shouldn't be necessary to install a compatible electronic distributor. Good luck.

RACE ON!!!

Hi,
Hope all is well. I did only see the responses listed. If I did something not correct,I am sorry. This is very good info. Thank you for your time and smarts! I could account for all wires, except for the ones that I'm pretty sure are for the Ecm. What you said makes sense. The distributor (Mallory) does not have computer control. I have made an effort to keep the engine stock in appearance, to keep the crossfire. This four bolt main rebuild was rebuilt by a friend who rebuilds engines. He and his son also build drag cars. He has told me all the piston types, heads, cam, crank, and so forth. Won't bore you with it.
The information on the distributor, came from Advance Auto's computer, in the store in Joliet, il. It shows, number for number the dist. I have. I understand now, it will not work. So now, I guess I will have to rebuild the old one and I guess sell the Mallory. Please let me know in the future, if I say or do any thing I should not. Any thoughts will be of great help.Thank You! Larry

Quote:
You neither did nor said anything wrong. I am happy if you didn't see my original post. Your opening post wasn't very clear and I was rude in dealing with it.

There really isn't anything about the original computer controlled HEI to rebuild. If the shaft is tight in the bushings and they aren't worn, about all you can do is make sure the electrical components are in working order and make sure the cap and rotor aren't excessively worn or burnt. It really isn't a formal spec, but I like to shim the end play on the distributor shaft to between .006" and .010". The factory HEI not only is, and looks stock, it is an excellent distributor for mild ,plus, performance work.

RACE ON!!!

Sounds Good! The unit is tight and seems serviceable, not a lot of play. I think replacing some parts will let me take a ride on Saturday. Thanks for your patience. It really does help to talk to people with like interests. Thanks . Larry