Is the 225 oil pump driven by the distibutor?

If so, then I should be able to clock my HEI distributor in any direction correct?

 

The problem I'm having is the engine dies as soon as I apply any vacume...by mouth on vacume line.
Mechanical advance is 15 deg and works fine.
Not sure why it dies with advance by vacume?

 

Are you hooking up to ported vacuum source? Not manifold vacuum.

 

Yes it's port.
I wanted to test the amount of vacume advance...so I used suction by mouth.
I read the article by rich motts and have my balancer marked up to 40 deg.
So I figured I would advance it and use the timing light....Didn't work.
The reason I am doing this is because when trying to drive it it would do the same thing...die. I unhooked the vacume advance an it didn't die.??

 

I thought vacuum advance was only 3 or 4 degrees. have you tried to back off on the initial timing and see how far you can suck?

15* total mecahanical seems a little small. My Mallory dual point is suppossedly 28* total mechanical advance (no vacuum). Is that what the stock figure is suppossed to be?

 

Yes and it dies right away...weird huh?!

 

Mucho wierd. If you retard the timing 4 degrees and it dies when you apply the advance either your advancing too much really quickly or something else is awry inside the dist. Have you watched the the distributor with the cap off to see if anything obvious is happening? Shorting out with the movement? Dunno - I'm grasping at straws.

 

I have watched the vacume advance move when I apply vacume looked like it worked fine. I will double check the wires and make sure there isn't a short or something. Thanks for the advice. I will let you know.
Ryan

 

Update.... Well I figured it out with everyones helpR) The wires inside the HEI were not tight on the ignition module and when the vacume would move the advance mechanism, the wire would loose contact and whammooo....Shed die. I cured it by tightening up the connector.
Thanks everyone!!!