Distributor upgrades

[MWA]

Has anyone ever purchased an HEI Distributor from ebay? Or should I just purchase one from summit? The reason I asked is because I have seen some companies sell them for like 60 bucks on ebay and at summit I will spend 159.99 for one with the vacuum advance. They look just alike.

 

[khan0165]

any replacement HEI should be good for a mild to stock performance engine. Summit/Accel/MSD/ProComp/etc... Many companies make replacement HEI systems.

If you are looking for an upgrade, most of these companies sell "performance" models. For a few more dollars than a stock replacement, you can get a performance one with 45,000 V. Many of these are good past 6000rpm.
in either case, the distributor components are all the same, the cap and coil are the upgraded part.

If your original is in good shape, and you are looking to beef it up, you will see the same improvements if you replace the stock cap and coil with a performance one.

an Ebay item is good, as long as it is new and name brand...

one more thing... I would recommend also upgrading wires to something like 8mm or 10mm if you beef up the dizzy.

 

[khan0165]

I am using one of these
http://store.prestoliteperformance.com/ ... y-rtr.html

with a Super Coil, 45,000V
http://store.prestoliteperformance.com/ ... ories/gm-h

you can probably find the same item on Ebay... just make sure it's new and name brand.

 

[DoubleV]

Has anyone ever purchased an HEI Distributor from ebay? Or should I just purchase one from summit? The reason I asked is because I have seen some companies sell them for like 60 bucks on ebay and at summit I will spend 159.99 for one with the vacuum advance. They look just alike.

Stay away from those cheap $60 ebay HEI's. They are garbage.

 

[bill]

Has anyone ever purchased an HEI Distributor from ebay? Or should I just purchase one from summit? The reason I asked is because I have seen some companies sell them for like 60 bucks on ebay and at summit I will spend 159.99 for one with the vacuum advance. They look just alike.

Stay away from those cheap $60 ebay HEI's. They are garbage.

I bought one...works great!

 

[DoubleV]

I bought one...works great!

Yeah, but for how long? There's a reason why they're cheap. It's because they're cheap....

And of course there's bound to be a half-way decent one out of all the crappy ones, but why take a chance getting one that's mediocre at best when you can spend a little more for a known good one that'll be better? Do it ONCE and be done with it because you get what you pay for. Most people try and cheap out to save a few bucks and it usually ends up costing them more in the end. Don't buy cheap Chinese garbage and things usually work out much better.

 

[bill]

I bought one...works great!

Yeah, but for how long? There's a reason why they're cheap. It's because they're cheap....

And of course there's bound to be a half-way decent one out of all the crappy ones, but why take a chance getting one that's mediocre at best when you can spend a little more for a known good one that'll be better? Do it ONCE and be done with it because you get what you pay for. Most people try and cheap out to save a few bucks and it usually ends up costing them more in the end. Don't buy cheap Chinese garbage and things usually work out much better.

I agree with you. You definately get what you pay for. But the fact that most of the parts sold everywhere these days come from overseas anyway, makes it harder to find those that arent. Very few parts sold online disclose where they are made, so that makes it harder to find genuine USA made stuff too. I have the original stock distributor if this one fails.