i will be converting my stock HEI dist to the small cap distributor. does anybody have a wiring diagram i can follow to accomplish this? would a distributor from a tbi truck work on my tpi motor? and how do you install/wire a coil? thanks

 

It's more complicated than that. The small cap distributor doesn't have weights and a vacuum advance to advance the timing. It uses the ECM to control the timing. The ECM that uses a big cap HEI doesn't have the timing circuit in it. You can install the small cap one but the timing will not advance making the engine a dog.

 

so would i have to upgrade my ecm for a later third gen model? would everything else hook up to it the same way using the stock harness? i needed to upgrade my ecm anyways since i have an 86 but swapped out the 305 for a 350 thanks for the help

 

You would probably have to change the entire harness.
Then there's the problem of the late model harness has a plug and your earlier engine doesn't have anything for it to plug into. It just turns into a big can of worms...

 

what is that plug for? is there any HEI dist that will clear the HSR so i dont have to go thru all that trouble??? thanks a lot.

 

I was unclear. I meant to say "and the wiring harness has some plug and it doesn't match the engine". Like if you were to put an '84 engine in an '89 car. Stuff won't plug up.
I don't know diddley about the HSR.
There may be some people that are using it in pre-87 cars and you can get their input on what they had to do to make it work.