Need help!!!

[85SS]

I still have no fire.

This is what happened...
Me and a buddy was trying to figure out how to get my master kill switch to kill the truck. The alternator is keeping it running. So after unhooking the alt. and then starting it back up and checking the kill switch to shut the truck down. Which worked. But now I don't have any fire.

What we have done/checked...
First thing I did was put a plug in the coil wire to see if it was firing. (my buddy that was holding it said it was GOOD:D)
Well we tried it again and nothing.
Figured the box was bad just had a little juice to fire that one plug.
Had a buddy that was going to loan me a box to try and see if that was the problem. But then he asked if I did the test procedure on the box.
Got a test sheet from MSD on how to see if the box is working properly.
Checked it as instructed and had good blue arc.Means box and coil are good
Figured it had to be in my distributor. (Mallory few years old)
A buddy decides to let me try his dist. Went and pulled it out of a running truck carried back to the shop, dropped it in, NOTHING. ( it was a MSD pro billet 85551)
Checked the box thing again and now nothing at the box.
Checked all connections again and all was good
Checked the ignition switch to make sure it wasn't trying to quit.
With a test light to make sure power was coming out of switch and getting all the way to the box, it was, the tested the box without touching the switch cause we knew it was working that time for sure. Still nothing.
Called Jegs and that guy said that the MSD box HAS to have the main power and ground hooked straight to the battery or they will do some wierd stuff.
So we ran a power and ground to the inside of the truck to the box checked it again and still nothing.
My guess is that the box did finally quit but don't know why it had fire some time but not all. ???

Any help is VERY appreciated.
If I don't get it figured out soon I am probably going to replace all of it with something different.
Thanks

[chris1972]

make sure you have power to the box while cranking...see if you can ohm the pick-up in the dist..if all good then might be the box..

[oncearacer52]

Put a timing light on a plug wire. If it lights its ok. chris1972 may be on to something. Some times if it tries to fire as you let off the starter you are robbing the power somewhere else.

[85SS]

There is no fire at the plugs at all.
I do have power to the box while cranking.
Even ran a new wire straight to it.
Tried it with the battery charger on thinking it might not have enough juice.
Already changed the dist. Still nothing.

[85SS]

A buddy told me last night to pull the pill out and try it.
Said he has seen the pills go bad and make the box do some wierd stuff.
Gonna try it when I get home today.

[manyfire]

Sounds like a intermittit power problem, did you try bypassing the entire truck electrical system and do the power from the batt. You said that the alt was not shutting down and the truck was still running, the only way the truck would stay on is if the ignition systeem is active, I was having a problem with low voltage in my truck and a lack of power, I know it is differant problem but I put in a silonoid and toggle,you may not have enough power to the system to sustain fire, the key only controls the starter and the acc. Even if the alt is shut down it will still run off the battery until the fuel runs out because the pump is off, I guess what I am trying to say if you are running a carb and you have direct power to the ignition system, fuel and can crank it it should run. If you don't get spark then you have a problem with the ignition.

[manyfire]

You put all that in while I was typing, lol, I would go with a bad box, of you have power tithe box and you said the truck kept running after you shut down the key, sounds like the key hot switch in the box is dead

[SassyV8]

This might be a guess for me, Mabee check the ground. Just a wild guess.

[Bakas]

You need to run a 4 gage wire straight off the batt. directly to the lug on the alt. and the truck will not keep running.

I believe you need around 50 ohms comming from the plug wires. If I were you id go back to basics and look over the simple stuff, thats all I can say.

But I would highly suggest calling MSD directly if you havent already, alot of those JEGS tech guys suck.

[85SS]

Thanks Guys
Finally got it running. After rewiring the whole MSD system with new 2 gauge power and grounds, my alternator charge system and all that it still wouldn't fire. So we were about to give up when we got to thinking that when we had fire at the coil but not at the distributor we were using the white wire signal from the box. That's when I thought my distributor was bad. When I replaced it I used a MSD with the purple and green magnetic pickup wire.
So we started checking the wire back to the box and to where we found the problem. One of the wires in the plug had got pushed out of the casing when being plugged up. So we fixed that and tried it again and we had fire at the coil. Put the MSD back in and she fired right up.
So it was my distributor.
If only more attention was paid when the magnetic wire was plugged up the first time we wouldn't have been pulling our hair out for 5 days. And I could have took it to T&T friday.
O'well it's running now.

[manyfire]

Glad to hear it man, you definately won't have a power shortage now

[Ryoung68]

Like Bakas stated, check the simple stuff, LOL! :icon_lol: Good to hear you got it going, now go have some fun! :headbang: