aftermarket high energy ignitions

[Cheekster96]

Hello gang. Wanted to get some opinions and thoughts from people as to what route I should go to.

I have an 87 3/4 ton 4x4 pick up with the 350 TBI. This is the HD motor.

I am not sure if i have the HEI distributor or not. My coil is not attached to it but rather to the rear of the intake manifold. I know the HEIs have the coil mounted on top.

So anyways...I was looking to see what i can do to make the truck run a bit smoother, idle better and get a better combustion goin. When it is damp and humid out, the truck is sluggish, might die if idled too long. I also tow a 3500 lb boat and use the bed to haul heavy oak trees and pines.

I know MSD makes several different applications as well as Accell. I dont want to spend $200 or $300 on something that is intended for street racing or dirt tracks. Something a bit more than stock. Make sense? Something that is not too complicated to hooked up with a zillion wires to splice and so forth. Would an aftermarket coil do the trick?

Any thoughts or suggestions?

thanks all.

Lee

[facn8me]

MSD makes a coil for your application. Direct bolt in. Plus I would suggest very good plug wires. The coil is "better" I am just afraid this might not help fix what you want. You didn't say how many miles but you may have a dirty injector or lazy o2 senser. Check your wiring connectors at the ecm and at the sensors for corrosion or loose conecter. These problems tend to show up when it is damp out. Fuel pressue should be checked also. The TBI runs at fairly low pressure 13-15psi and will run, but not well at 11-12. Of course check the fuel filter. Pressure reg may be bad also. They are notorius for the TBI gasket going bad too.

 

 

The TBI is not a common hot rod motor. not alot of pure race parts availible for them. Even a chip would make very little difference.(6-8hp) The ecm's are not very sophisticated compared to 2005. With headers a chip, cam and coil. I would guess a hp increase of 35-40hp. That is pretty minute for what it would cost. Nowadays we can get that with a custom tune. Just check the basics and do a compression test to get a true idea of how good of shape your engine is in. Good luck hope some of this helped.