well this is question #1 regarding my engine swap , both engines are in the driveway , and the new one is not going in for a while , but I would like to start asking questions now and get everything ready before I drop in the new engine (I Still have to clean and paint the engine bay before it goes in).

soo..

old distributor - stock (I Think) LG4 distributor , has two pigtails , one with four wires (yellow , orange/black , red/black , pink/white) , the other pigtail has three wires (brown , black , orange).

new distributor - only has two wires going from it , obviously they were installed by the previous owner so the colors don't really matter but they are yellow and black.

it looks like this



thing is that my old one doesn't have that "valve on the side" looking thingie , lol , I have no clue what that is for , obviously a rubber (vacuum ?) line goes to it , but where does it go from there?

actually that just might be my new distributor , lol , looks exactly the same...(hmm , maybe not , mine has three wires going from the cap to the "insides" , this one only has two... but whatever , it's close enough lol )

anyways , can someone tell me how do I hook up the new distributor ? I Would like to use the stock tach for now , so I need to hook up the two wires to something , (2 to 7 , so I guess I'll end up with 5 "useless" wires).

 

and in case you need my car info to lookup the wire colors , it's a 85 Trans Am , LG4 , 700r4 auto tranny...

 

WellI think the pic is a vacum advance HEI distributer and yours is computer controled advance.

 

Thats it. You are correct about the vacuum line. It goes to the timed vacuum port on the carb. In the case of your "old" dist. the 4 wire plug goes to the computer for advance. If your ditching the puter your going to need the "new" one. The original will not work correctly without the computer telling it what to do.

 

ok , yeah I'm ditching the 'puter

so , I have to use the "new" one , ok , that's not a problem , but can you guys tell me how to wire it so I can use the stock tach ?

also , since it's vacuum advance , where's the timed vacuum port on the carb ? (it's a holley 650 double pumper). I can post pics of the carb if it helps...

 

No sweat, I did the same change before actually w/ the same year/engine combo. You should have a red and white wire that went into your old dist. The red one had a white connector, the white one had a brown one. The read is your power to the HEI, the white is your Tach.

As your looking at the tab on the side of the dist, the red goes to the front right, and the white goes to left.

Its a cinch.

About the Holley, I dont know, I can say that on the Edelbrocks it is the one on the far left. But, once again thats Edelbrocks.

Clayton