Car dead, HEI problems..

[Josh]

I am having trouble doing the conversion from points to HEI on my 67 Catalina. All went well with the distributor swap and it started and ran fine while testing with the 8 volt wire that originally went to the coil. I then took that “resistance” wire and cut it one inch from the firewall fuse block, but it still measured 8 volts. I took apart the fuse block to trace the wire and it seems that on the interior side of the block, the terminal has a yellow and a white wire going to it. The white wire looked like it had some sort of cloth fibers under the plastic outer coating. This traveled up over the dash cluster and “disappeared” it seems because it does not seem to come back down anywhere. The yellow wire I traced to the ignition switch. I spliced into this yellow wire just after it comes out of the fuse block and ran it to the BATT terminal on the distributor. This supplied 12 volts with key on. It ran great. After driving to town it started hiccupping and I pulled over when smoke came out of the dash vents. Now, I can turn the motor over and it fires up great but as soon as I let go of the key it shuts down. I re-tested the one inch of wire I left coming out of the firewall originally and it now does the same thing?? I am thoroughly confused now. Can anyone help me out, thanks!

[HILROD]

If the color codes are like a Chevy, the yellow should only supply 12 volt power while cranking. The white braided wire should supply running voltage, 8 volts. You can pick up power at the fuse box and bypass the existing wires. Just find a wire hot, ignition only, and hook it up.

[Josh]

The schematic I have would agree with that.. yellow to the soledoid. For some reason I was able to get ignition from that wire to run the car. Maybe it was being back fed by the resistance wire and that what I fried. Anyway, my schematic shows light blue for ignition hot, does this sound right with the Chev colors?
Thanks

[HILROD]

It might be light blue at the ignition switch. I can't remember. The rest of the wire that you can see is a thin braided white wire.

[Josh]

I'll tap the blue one tonight and see what I get!

[Mayhem]

I second Hilrod. just run a new wire from the fusebox that is switched 12volt to the HEI. mine has been that way since the 80's with no problems.

[6'9"Witha69]

Funny, I just replaced the resistor wire from the engine side of the fuse block and got 12 volts.

[MrQuick]

pre 69's are funky. also no power during cranking...anyhoo... it should come right off of your ignition switch mux.

[Josh]

Like you said, no acccesory power while cranking (I think unique to 1967), so that means I cannot just tap off any accesory or the fuse box cause she won't fire. I had to tap right off the ignition switch using the ignition terminal.
I got the car running then decided to cut the cloth covered wire under the dash so it would not get too hot (it was getting 12 volts at this point). The car kept running but when I shut it down it would not fire again. By cutting that cloth wire, the ignition hot lead I tapped into went cold during cranking but stayed hot with accesory on?? I had to splice that cloth wire back together and just leave it. The 67 Firebird schematic I have just is not the same as my Catalina....

[David Pozzi]

My 67 Camaro has a fuse box spade terminal marked "IGN" I took power from there and mine worked. An HEI needs up to 10 amps to run at higher rpm's, maybe a bit more.
David

[Josh]

I have that plug too, but it has no juice when the key is in crank position!

[David Pozzi]

I'd have another look at the ign switch and also make sure the harness is plugged into it OK.