Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines inline distributor differences

Ok, here is my question; I am almost done installing a 250 in my 1987 s10 blazer, which used to be a tbi 2.8 v6. I plan on converting the 250 to tbi, with a 4.3 throttle body, and ecm. All my stock wiring harness remains intact, and the only problem that I have now is the ignition side of the swap. After much reading here and other places, then scouring all used resources and ebay, I think I came up with a solution. I found that gm made an EST ignition style distributor, for the 153 chevy 4 cylinder engines. These distributors look exactly like the distributor for the tbi v6 that was on the 2.8, but it is for the chevy 4 cylinder. My hopes are that the lower end of the distributor, is the same dimensionally, as the inline 6 is....then I can take the 4 cylinder EST distributor, gut the pickup, cap and rotor, then replace them with my 2.8 v6 pickup, cap and rotor....and voila, a 6 cylinder tbi plug and play distributor? Can anyone check, or confirm, my thoughts on the compatability of the bottom drive gear/oil pump drive mesurements, compared to the 250....or try to just drop a 4 cyl "duke" distributor into a 250 to see if it indeed fits? Thanks for any thoughts, or testing done.

All of those measurements are the same. The 153 is 2/3 of a 230 six cylinder. There is also an HEI distributer for the six. I have a couple around here somewhere if you need pictures. We put a GM TBI on my 270 GMC as a demo a few years ago it took less than an hour to get it running. Your swap should be easy.

Thank you for the info. The 250 currently has HEI, but I need the TBI style distributor for a plug and play to my current harness. This should be a very quick, and efficient, way to convert the inline 6's to factory TBI, using stock gm pieces. I also forgot, I will need to swap over the shaft "stator " from the 4 cylinders 4 leg piece, to the 6 cylinders 6 leg one.

The 151 (Iron Duke) had a single barrel TBI. Some 151s had the distributer in the front and some had them in the back of the block. The ones if the front of the block would be the some as the 153 but I'm not sure about the others.

The one I use for the inline Chevy 6 came on 1981 Chevy trucks with California emissions. I order one from Orielly's . It is a part# cardone part # 30-1677
They want a big core charge, just put a regular dist in the box.

You may want to check with Tom Langdon at Stovebolt. His small HEI distributor cap kit for the Chevy 250 is based on the Chevy 2.8L distributor. With the correct modules and pickups, it should work with the TBI system.

Stovebolt "Mini" Spacesaver HEI
SKU 38-7292


http://www.langdonsstovebolt.com

Tlowe, that is just a stock HEI unit.... and Winter, that is also just HEI with a small cap and remote coil. I am eliminating the vacuum advance system, getting a remote coil, and making a true plug and play system to my current wiring harness in the vehicle. I already have the HEI on the inline.....now I want a " stock " looking TBI/HEI distributor. There is a guy on ebay that is selling a custom distributor that is exactly what I am wanting to do....but 255.00 is alot for something I can do for around 100-150.

Inlinedime, you better check again.it is a special, electronic timing dist. It has no vacuum can.

Tom, you are correct, sorry. I looked it up, then without looking closely, dismissed it as a vaccum unit. I still want to have a distributor, that looks 1987 tbi correct, just so the whole swap I have worked so hard on, looks like it almost came that way.

this is the distributor I will use, except it will have all the v6 components, and cap, swaped into it.

here it is all done...with old parts, I will use new when I assemble for final time. All in all, took only 45 minutes...oh, and I also had to swap the base plate to accomidate the cap size difference.

That was a neat trick! Keep us up on the rest of your swap. What years did the 153 use that distributor?

Not totaly sure on the years used, but this one came from a 1992 if I remember correctly. I think they used them from mid 80's to mid 90's. This also is from a mercruiser marine engine, which I have found to have this style distributor, yet, I have not found one used in the automotive side yet.

!970 was the last of the 153 in cars and vans. It was an industrial engine after that so the Mercruiser is the link. Thanks, That is good info to have if I ever decide to inject one.