hawks70

I've done my homework here so I know where to hook up power and all that. My question is that if I don't want to remove wires from the harness that I won't be using now in case I ever want to change it back. Can I just cover the ends of the original coil wires and not connect the yellow wire to the starter and wrap them all up? Would this be safe to do? Thanks!

oldcutlass

You can cap and stow your resistor wire and run a new one to the HEI. You may need your wire from the starter as in some models the ignition switch isolates the start and run circuits because of the voltage drop in running points.

Nasty455

Just run a new wire from the fuse block... fused...with full time current from the battery
and leave your original wiring harness intact.
You don't want to use a wire which is disabled when the ignition is energized...as some accessories are disabled to have more voltage available at start up.

joe_padavano

Not sure what you mean by "full time current", because obviously the HEI needs to be powered from a switched 12V source if you ever want to turn the car off.

You are correct in that the power wire needs to be hot in both the RUN and START positions of the ignition switch, which is why you usually need to use the yellow wire from the starter (which provides 12V in the START position) and run a new wire to replace the black/pink resistor wire to provide 12V in the RUN position.

You can simply connect to the existing coil terminal on the joined yellow and black/pink wires to provide the START voltage and run a new wire in parallel from a switched 12V source for the RUN voltage. Leaving the black/pink resistor wire in place and connected is fine, since the current will always take the path of least resistance (the new wire to the switched source) and will bypass the resistor wire. You don't need to disconnect anything. The new wire will simply act like a "short" to bypass the old resistor wire.

hawks70

Thanks guys. Very helpful. Almost ready to fire this thing after taking 2 years rebuilding the engine. Waiting on heat shield for starter so I can get that and the header back on. After that and rebuilding the Carb she'all be eady to fire.