I am installing a new engine harness and can't figure out how the garage installed the HEI distributor I bought a couple of years back. They appeared to use the yellow fuzzy wire (coil?) from the starter to the bat terminal on the distributor.

There are four wires on the harness that the Dr. Rebuild Diagram identifies as for the starter:

Black: The ground
Yellow (Small Head): Do I delete this or use as the connect from the starter to the bat terminal on the distributor?
Red (Small Head): Do I delete this?
Red (Larger Head): This appears to be the resistor wire that from threads I have read I should delete as it won't provide 12V power.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

***FIRST DISCONNECT THE BATTERY!!!***

I have a '73 that i put an HEI in last year. The yellow cloth coated wire is a bypass wire that only should have juice when cranking the car. There should be a black wire with really small pink writing that comes from the main fire wall connector, under the booster, to the old distributor. This was the resistance wire. On the other side of the connector, the interior side, there is a 10 gauge pink wire that feeds this resistance wire. It is a normal wire from the ignition switch and is used to run the ignition. If you pull the fuse box out of the way by undoing the little clips that hold it in, you will be able to see the wires feeding into the pass side of the fire wall connector. Locate the ignition wire from a wiring diagram for your year, and trace it back to it's harness. Cut it in half, leaving about 3" of wire to the harness block, and get enough of the wire to work with out of the harness tape. strip it back around 3/8" and crimp a yellow butt splice to it ( the part of the wire coming out of the harness) get a 10 gauge stranded wire and rout it into the engine compartment, there was a plugged hole right above harness on my '73. Rout it to the distributor +batt terminal. You can either crimp on a yellow female spade terminal, or you can get an HEI specific clip on terminal, I've heard they are available. I just went to a wrecking yard and cut out one and soldered it to the end of the wire. Your done. If you want to switch back to your original wiring, you just cut the new wiring out, and butt splice back together the pink wire. C.

 

Thanks.

I am going to need this dumbed down a little bit further if you don't mind.

I have a reduction gear starter with two posts (Bat and IGN). Once the HEI is hooked up what dow I do with the five wires going to the gear reduction starter.

Reduction Gear Starter:
Black (ground)
Yellow - small connector
Purple with small conector
Red with large connector
Bat wire

Engine Harness:
Also the yellow with the small connector merges with the tan cloth wire which would have connected to the postive coil. Do I just tape this up?

Ignition Harness:
Do I need to delete out the ignition harness wires?
What about tapping the fuse box IGN spade instead of the pink wire to the ignition.

Sorry for all the questions but I I am afraid of shorting my new harness.

Thanks again.

 

I can't help you with the starter hook up. I can tell you that the cloth covered yellow wire will no longer be used. I taped mine up and tie-wrapped it out of the way. I can also tell you that with an HEI, all you need is the Batt wire to the HEI, powered, to make your car run, and this should be done through the old path, and that happens to contain a resistance wire, from the fire wall to the dist/old coil. Yes, you can tap off of the the IGN tab in the fuse box, you would use a yellow female spade lug, crimped in HARD onto a 10 gauge wire, and fully engaged onto the lug. The way I did mine is undetectable and no plugs, but electrically, tapping the IGN lug is just the same.