v6 HEI caps and distributors

I know that there are 2 different dist caps for the HEI V6. Are there 2 different distributors as well?

 

sweet! that must be what's wrong, i put in a new dist, and i've been blowing oil out every possible crevice ever since!

 

yep
there's your problem....

 

me either, but it was fine and didn't leak any oil until i replaced the dist. anyone know the correct p/n?

 

now i'm pushing oil out the front of the intake manifold, and both valve cover gaskets. and she didn't leak a drop before the dist swap

 

Good luck on this , i gave up and went back to points . Local auto parts couldnt seem to come up with odd fire . I read some where on here get the part for a 75 buick appolo , that didnt work or they messed up as it was an even fire dist .

 

I'm not sure. The block was swapped out by the PO in the late 80's. He kept the reciepts, so i called the shop that did the work. That guy didn't know anything about odd vs even fire motors. I assumed that I had a newer even fire. But my firing order is 1-6-5-4-3-2, which I think is an odd fire. I can't imagine how the distrubutor or button would matter, but understand how the cap matters.
I thought I had a stretched timing chain, so i pulled all that apart, and the chain looks new! Looked at the dist, and had 1/4" or more of vertical travel, so i replaced it. I have been pushing oil out everywhere ever since.

 

Same firing order for odd fire and even fire Buick 225 and 231 and 252, Chevrolet 200, 229, 4.3, etc. Very common firing order for many, many V-6's. Can't go by that.

Doesn't make sense that a distributor swap started causing oil leaks unless you had other issues that were there and the wrong ignition timing brought to the surface.

 

Could oil be leaking by the distributor gasket? Maybe it got damaged.

 

My only thought was maybe the improper timing took out a head gasket. It would appear that compression is getting into the block someplace.

 

If you use the search function, there are dozens of threads on an HEI swap. Very easy, but you have to do it right. The oddfire distributor is the ONLY GM HEI distributor that works the way it does. Many long time mechanics cant make a OF work because they don't take the time to research how to install it. Hands down the best improvement that can be made to a oddfire Buick v6.

 

thanks all! Great source of help, again, like usual!

Need to hit the search feature and see what else I can learn about this.

Think I'm gonna start w a dist cap. probably won't fix the problem, but it'ss the least expensive route. then I'll check into the correct distributor...