Archer Meredith

My 1972 cutlas 350 rocket has a HEI distributer is this stock?

61reoldsman

Nope ,it should have a distributor with points and a separate coil ,lots of guys switch over to an HEI to avoid setting points .My 72 already had it swapped over when i bought it but i replaced the worn out one with a new one from Summit ,works perfect.

bccan

Not stock but imo a good alternative. OE has good reliabilty & pretty simple.

They pose some challenges to setting up a nice performance curve & limit but that can get talked out here. Try doing some searches on Olds forums & inet, do some reading & post up questions for clarification. It is a broad topic.

If it has a stock curve, no biggie but there is some performance to be had for a few dollars & small amount of work.

oldcutlass

I believe HEI's were offered starting mid 73.

Archer Meredith

Thanks

coppercutlass

The crane curve kit is the easiest kit to follow if you decide to recurve same goes for the msd curve kit.

MDchanic

Agreed.

I like the Crane kit.

Depending on how your engine is set up now, it could even buy you an additional 5-10 horsepower.

- Eric

Archer Meredith

I will defiantly remember that thanks

oldcutlass

Buy the kit for your distributor, there are different ones. I like the Crane kit for GM HEI's and for an MSD I use theirs. There is also a different kit for a points setup.

72cuttys

Im guessing this Crane HEI kit will work with all GM 350's? Or is it Olds specific

coppercutlass

The crane kit is just a really well put together kit that works with the stock weights. It will work on any gm hei dist.

MDchanic

The HEI kits will work with any HEI distributor, 350, 455, or 260.

The points kits will work with any points distributor.

- Eric

Tony72Cutlass'S'

I ripped a HEI unit out of a 76' cutlass, it's been running strong for 5 years.

I'll eventually buy the advance kit and juice some horses out of it.

61reoldsman

The old HEI that was in my car was acting up when I pulled it ,the PO had installed a MSD system on it which is like adding nitrous to a lawn mower !The thing was so worn out it's no wonder i couldn't get the car to idle nice ,I kept going back to the carb and adjusting it but no avail,finally i pulled the cap and noticed the carbon tracks in the cap and the rusty weights and springs and I thought no friggin wonder so i pulled the trigger and ordered one from Summit.The first one was a Summit brand and wouldn't sit down properly (sat up about 1/16") so I had to send it back to Summit .They sent me return a UPS label and sent me out another one asap (Proform)which worked perfect .Started it up and it sounded way better before I adjusting anything.The motor runs way better now then it ever did when i first got it.Long story ,sorry ,but a good distributor will help with your tuning immensely,plus it's one less thing to worry about.JMO

coppercutlass

I got the proform unit in my 72 and I have ran it for 6 years no now issue just replaced the cap and rotor. I have a chineesium flebay unit that cost 45 bucks in my dads olds powered 77 pontiac bonneville and aside from re curving it it was very well worth the 45 and 20 for the curve kit.

oldcutlass

The nice thing about using an HEI is that you can crank your initial timing up and still maintain the 36ish initial + mechanical. The only thing is that you have to dial back your vacuum advance to keep your total with initial, mechanical, and vacuum under 50.