Jeepster-American Jeepster ClubThis board is maintained by the American Jeepster Club to support all discussions of Jeepster Commandos and Commando models of Jeeps. Please visit our club web site for more information at www.off-road.com/jeepster
Ok, So I jumped on the HEI bandwagon too. I took me two years (long story) but I finally fired up my Jeepster tonight. Of course, my wife isn't impressed that my 20 minute trip to the garage took me two hours and a trip to the gas station, but that's the price you pay for marrying a Jeepster guy. I digress. The long and short of it is that the Jeep runs so much better now that I don't think I'll bother tightening down the distributor and I'm thinking of leaving the even-fire cap in place (it came that way). If this beast runs too well, my wife will want me to drive her car so she can take the Jeep!
Jay - put the right cap on it - you'll love it and it won't strand you on the road somewhere.
The even fire cap will run on an odd-fire but the spark has to jump a long way inside the cap on some cylinders. Letting that continue will eventually cause the coil to fail - available voltage has to climb too high to make that jump, insulation in the coil eventually fails.
Plus, the cylinders where the spark had to jump so far aren't getting the full effects of the long duration of the HEI. You'll most likely feel an improvement in performance, as with anything when you do it right.
Still a great write up TIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Even though it has those stupid looking drawings.)
Excellent write up and a great introduction to this board! I found this forum looking for HEI info and I can't stop reading. I did have a problem with clearances. Between the vacuum advance hitting the fan, the 4 round parts of the distributor cap hitting the intake manifold, and the limited area of the cap that you can point #1 TDC at, it was far too limited in acceptable positions to ever have any timing adjustment. My fan was 2"-3" from the radiator so I just used a bigger fan spacer and now I have way more timing adjustment and still plenty of radiator clearance.
Edit: I have also noticed that there are several different designs for the vacuum advance. Mine has a 90o rubber thingy for the vacuum hose sticking out of the end of the can and overall it sticks out over 2" from the dist. I've seen some that have the vacuum hose go straight out of the top of the metal canister but I haven't had one in my hands yet to measure. It appears to be significantly shorter than what I have. I got my HEI from Autozone. I had them look up a replacement vacuum advance and it looked like the shorter one ($24!). I tried to convince them that the rebuilder screwed up and they should just let me swap them but no luck. I will probably buy the shorter one and move the fan back how it was eventually.
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