When swapping a HEI into a 351M to replace the duraspark will the dist. gear need swapped out because of the oil pump drive shaft? If I remember correctly the Ford driveshaft is like a hexagon shape correct?

Anybody have a part number for the right gear if I need one?

 

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If you buy a HEI dizzy for a ford I would assume it comes with a ford oil pump drive gear installed? I could be wrong.

 

Yes that would be true but the one I have now came off of my chevy 355 race motor. From what I understood you could go to a junk yard,swap meet, craigslist, fleabay and get one for a chevy cheap or in my case already have one and use that. That's why I asked about the gear and oil pump drive shaft.

 

You cannot go to the junkyard, pull a HEI dizzy out a chevy and plop it into your ford, no matter what drive gear you put on the end of it

 

WTF, uhm no, dude you need a trip back to pre-school to learn that square pegs can't fit in round holes.

In all seriousness, uhm no, NOTHING will fit, nore is ANYTHING like that a good idea. Yes you can buy aftermarket HEI dizzies for a Ford, but why would you? HEI's SUCK!!!!! the stock Duraspark is MUCH better ignition.

 

They'res a few reasons why I wanted to swap in the HEI, one big reason is someone decided they were a master "electricition" and decided to randomly cut wires them wire them back to same wire with a wire nut. Instead of the correct way.

So a one wire set up and removing the engine wiring harness will really clean up the engine compartment and makes it look alot cleaner. (No I will not be chopping it out) I'm going to remove it from the bulk head and correctly fix the wiring then put it up safe in my garage with the duraspark.

Contrary to what everyone say HEI is a damn good ignition, I mean I'm running mid 10's in the quarter mile with a stock ACCEL HEI in my chevy 355 drag car. So that distributor is more then enough for my old girl. Besides the timing curve is super easy to adjust and if I ever run a big cam I can easily lock out my timing.

Sounds like all I need is the the HEI unit for the Ford. I've got brand new race caps rotors and coil for the HEI to drop on.

 

I think your going backwords, but do what ya like.

HEIs have huge issues with crossfire and burning out the center post of the cap. The juice from the center cap tends to spark to the internal wiring for the coil. And the big flat contacts on the cap are terrible for reliably transfering a strong spark. You can claim all you want but you may want to consider the advice of someone that knows what they are talking about and consider that you didn't even know you couldn't put a chebby dizzy in a Ford.

The large cap of the Ford duraspark is fantastic for eleminating crossfire and contaning high voltages in the cap. Take a look at a MSD catalog sometime and take a note of how little HEI stuff there is and how much there is to adapt to using the large Ford cap. If you want to spend some money spend it on a good coil for a durapark and maybe an aftermarket setup to eleminate the stock box.

FWIW I don't believe this
Because you said this

 

I've never honestly had much problems with the HEI, and yes I know they have the adapter kit in the MSD catalog along with every other ignition nick nack you could think of.

But once again this isn't a race car just a stock truck other then dual exhaust. So I got 2 hp bump over factory. woooooo. And good ahead and bust my ***** for asking about putting the chevy HEI in the Ford, because I've search the threads on here and everyone said just get the HEI and drop it in. No specification. That's why I asked I was confused by it. Nobody knows everything. Yeah I've rebuilt a 302 here and there and valve job, blend, deck, and port some BBF and SBF heads at work, but most of my work of the rebuilds and build ups I do is on Chevy's and my dad and I's grand national. Which runs mid 9's in the quarter.

But I guess you don't believe that either. Go to youtube. Look up mr87b and the video is called muncie dragway in 09 (IIRC) it's the blue turbo regal. And if that's still not enough prove I'll post pictures of it in my drive way. And if that's still not enough proof yet I'll post pics of my dent next to it in the garage with a sign proving it.

So because I run locked out timing I don't know what I'm doing to go 10's? With a smaller LSA cam like the 108 I run now they like alot of inital timing. because of the locked timing I've got a clean idle and very snap throttle response. When I launch I'm already above 3 grand so it's already all in anyways. It's kinda funny alot of racers do run locked timing and MSD has lock out bushings for there distributors.

But what do I know?

 

Look man, I just thought I'd help ya by trying to stop ya from doing something you will regret and will cost ya big bucks. It's SOOO easy and free to just fix the duraspark and you end up with a better ignition. It's really only 4 wires, 5 with a tach.

 

I apolgize getting a little butt hurt on that last one my dog is old and crapped all over my bed some how in the middle sleeping so as you can see I think you would agree you'd be pretty hot waking up touching a dog turd LOL.

 

For what its worth the gear is NOT what drives the oil pump shaft. The oil pump shaft engages into the end of the distributor shaft. You would have to change the distributor shaft and I don't know where you would find one for this application.

 

Another vote for "keep the duraspark".

 

Doesn't matter what shaft you use the body of the distributor still won't fit the block. There are NO stock versions of any combination of any stock parts of an "HEI" that fit any Ford engine. Any Ford "HEI" is an aftermarket distributor.

For interesting historical note there is a version of the HEI for the AMC V8 stock. For decades of AMC and Jeep production many parts were simply sourced from GM. Ford, or Chrysler product lines. There is a huge array of oddball parts in the AMC and Jeep world. For instance in one year you will pop the hood of a Jeep and see an HEI the next year a Duraspark. LOL I guess AMC/Jeep agreed the Duraspark was better to.

 

I dont know if a 351m ever came with a points dizzy but jegs makes various kits a change a points dizzy into HEI and ive bought the kits for some older chevys ive owned and they work good. I dont know if this helps but its worth lookin onto.