Odd-fire or Even-fire?

Hi, I got some questions about my V6. I just read the V6 history in the archives and still confused. My 67 came with the original Dauntless 225.When I bought it ,it had jumped time. I replaced the timing chain and gears, and found the bottom of the dist. was chewed up and no good. Trying to find a new dist.,a guy at Mile-High Jeep in Denver suggested an HEI from a Buick. I have no idea what year the Buick in the Junkyard was, but I yanked the HEI, stabbed it in my 225{after a lot of grinding} and it fired up and ran. This was about 6 years ago. Last year the 225 died, and I found a great deal on a remaned. long-block 3.8 Buick. The paperwork said it was for 77-84 Buick.{even-fire?} I was able to bolt my big thick flywheel off my 225 right to it, though I had been told it would not bolt up. I also used the crank pulley and that same Dist. on my new engine too. I did have to come up with a new intake, valve covers and crank bolt. This set-up has been running for over a year now. It doesn't seem to want to run "right", and it runs a lot hotter than the 225 did. From what I've heard and read, this thing should not even run. Any thoughts? Thanks

Also, it has an Edelbrock 4 BRL intake, Holley pro-jection and the 225 fenderwell headers on it.

 

Well if the new engine truly is an even fire the flywheel is off balance for this engine, if the HEI was set for the oddfire its not gonna be right for the even fire, I would check the crank for sure to see if its an even or odd for sure. Then its gonna be a matter of tuning.
If the distributor is not right and the timing is off this will contribute greatly to overheating or running to hot.

 

Does the even fire distributor have the terminals evenly spaced around cap? Is that how you tell? Would the engine even run with the wrong distributor? I replaced everything in the distributor{ cap, rotor ,module, and pick-up}. I told the guy at the parts counter I had a '84 Regal. All the new parts were the same as what I took out.

Thanks for the casting number info, I'll check that this weekend.

Should I find a Buick flywheel and harmonic balancer and swap on? Is there a certain model Buick that came with a manual trans interchangable with the SM420? I really appreciate the help and info. Thanks

 

Remember search is your friend. Searching on oddfire hei, brings back threads with this link in them:

http://www.cjoffroad.com/writeup.asp?WU_ID=21&noAdd=1

Link shows how to convert an evenfire hei distributor to odd-fire. Should also help you identify what you have.

 

Just have the flywheel rebalanced to match the engine. All the rear drive Buick bellhousings will accept the sm420 with a very minumal bit of work, about 5-10 minutes with a drill press or a steady hand and a drill motor.
Distributor needs to be opened up to verify that it has 6 points on the stator (I think its called).

 

Hi Guys, Checked my casting number. Its 1261787,'79-'81 non-turbo. Also pulled my distributor and it is an odd-fire [3 points on the stator] Doh!! I got a Chiltons guide for '75-'87 Buick to get some tune-up specs. Thanks for the help and info......Will

 

Uh....Should be an even fire?

 

Yeah, apparently so. I got a new[reman.] distributor from Pep Boys today for $55.I'll stab it in tomorrow after Easter dinner. BTW, I have a good odd-fire HEI dist. for sale