advice on most affordable mopar electronic ignition.

okay so workin on a 47 plymouth with a 318 mopar in it, well i removed that and put in a 360,swapped the 318 dist. over to the 360 and no matter what i do this car has no spark. icve tried everythng. so whats the most affordable ignition unit for this? i belive its a 79'360,was lean burn but changed the intake and all of that,has a mild cam.

car is setup with 70's ignition with the box,ballast and all that junk on the firewall.(all of wich is brand new) just ready to take it out and switch over

 

Pertronix has an "plug and play" distributor I believe that eliminates the ballast and some of the other externals. I'd just Google "pertronics + mopar".

 

Mopar makes a good distributor. You can get all junkyard stuff. Their mid 70's stuff is an easy swap. Someone here should have the wiring diagram that was in Hot Rod.

 

I think he already tried that. Of course, without seeing what he did it's hard to guess at what the problem is with the stock setup. Pictures? narration?

The most affordable way to do it is to get a point distributor and heave all that electronic crap. Points worked for decades....they still work....

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1088186,parttype,7108

 

Praise the Lord, I am so .....ing sick of the points haters on here. That's cause they don't even know how to adjust them.


The quickest, highest revving ,showroom stock, car I ever owned was a 69 Dart 340 4sp with points.

 

The stock electronic ignition set up in my 50 dodge works great. Used a stock replacement mechanical advance distributor for a 1979 Chrysler cordoba. Make sure your starter relay is wired up correctly.

 

Assuming the distributor has the magnetic pickup instead of points, you could replace the box and ballast with a HEI module. Some details on my website and more with a Google search.

 

Mopar electronicn ignitions were and are some of the best standard systems to use. You can go aftermarket for sure however the stock stuff was well built and very reliable so much that many a magazine article has found little improvement over the MOPAR stuff to the good name aftermarket stuff. I'm not knocking the aftermarket stuff - just saying that the MOPAR stuff out of the box is pretty damn good.

 

The Mopar stuff is pretty good. Something there has failed though.

Here's some help troubleshooting: http://books.google.com/books?id=rtkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=ballast+resistor+testing&source=bl&ots=MY9I7qI8cV&sig=y_iZ4GgDrizRXiJVSf7sxOzzW60&hl=en&ei=J5CqSpzmNY7AlAfMwtDhBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=ballast%20resistor%20testing&f=false

If everything else is new, I'll bet it's the pickup in the distributor.

 

Are you sure you have no spark? Is it possable the distributor is 180' out? Did you forget the oil pump/distributor drive shaft? Is it possable you didnt realign it properly when reinstalling it? There is something you missed if this thing ran before you worked on it, and im betting it's nothing big enough to justify replacing an entire ignition system. Im not asking these questions to be an ass, im just throwing some ideas out thet you may not heve considered.

 

Didn't Mopars of this era have some issues with ballast resistors. If it tries to fire while cranking but not when the switch returns to the "run" position, check out the ballast resistor.

 

They had all kinds of fun issues. My wife's Dart would die in the same place every day on the way home from work

 

Take a different road



...or put points in it




lucky me, I worked for Dodge in 74/75, the low point for quality control.

We replaced so many electronics for ign and charging that the factory rep was bouncing some claims because some of the old parts still tested good. So the boss made a 120V AC adapter that hooked right to the old modules. No more bounced claims

 

How about diagnosing the problem? They are a pretty simple and reliable system in stock form. Start by getting a factory wiring diagram and making sure all parts are hooked up correctly. If that does not help, time to start trouble shooting.

 

I use points to trigger MSD's. Works good enough to go low tens. But then, I'm all backward, stupid, and archaic, so what do I know?

 

I love them. I followed the 94 directions for upgrading an old dist. and they have been trouble free and the engine starts instantly.



My converted old Mallory works great. When we first did this there were no aftermarket drop ins available at that time. I bought all Standard brand replacement parts and never had a issue.

 

Make sure the case of ignition module has good ground

 

That's a neat picture, not long ago I sold one of those Mallory caps on ebay for $140, and here's one that's sawed in half




.

 

You do have to phase the reluctor. I cut this one up in 1997? for my flathead and kept it for the future. My buddy that does the machine work recently got it out and used it on my FE. I bead blast the old ones and use some rattle can clear to restore an ugly old cap. They are pretty heavy duty.

 

okay so i havnt checked this and wow, alot of posts, to clear something up tho i stated it.

the distributor,resistor,voltage reg,and ignition modual,and coil are all brand new with grounds and i did look up a diagrahm and wired it to that, the car isnt here so i cant just go look at it.

as for who said if it ran before. it had a 318. that ran poorly and would die randomly, ran bad,sometimes didnt start. i replace it with a 360 and put a cam in it. yes im sure it has no spark,im not that stupid. and obviously the frive gear is in it,why would i have left it out? as for its position, i lined the timing gears up and dropped the drive in almost straight,then wired it accordingly to that. it has a sligt spark right when you turn the key on,then when you crank NOTHING then when you turn the key of a small spark. but none while cranking. ive adjusted the pickup as well in both the old and new distributor and i get nothing.

im stumped and dodge isnt my thing. im just trying to get this car going for my uncle so he can enjoy the hobby and go to shows with me but im lost. ive spent hours messing with it and i get no were.

 

im pretty sure its all hooked up right, i know the starter relay isnt hooked up to how it says but it did start the way it was before,and i didnt change anything that i know of,just sat for a long time and also a HACK owned it before.my uncle doesnt know alot about this stuff so im kinda having to get this figure out.

also when i tested the side of the coil with a light while cranking it was NOT blinking like i hear it should. indicating a triger,problem but its all new i dont get it. ive tried everything,even messing with the nuetral safety thats hooked to the starter relay,nothing seems to give it spark, only thing changes is it will not crank when i switch wires around.

just figured its faster to get a ford of msd on it or something.

 

It would be faster to diagnose the problem. There are only 4 parts in the system. Are you getting power to the coil? To the module? Is the distributor putting out a signal? Is the coil sparking? Does the spark get to the plug wire? Is it happening at the right time? Is the spark plug clean, gapped and working correctly? You should be able to check out the whole thing in 1/2 hour. Replace the defective part and away you go.

 

i thought i covered that, power to coil yes,power out of coil yes,power at plugs no. pickup has been gapped,new pickup,new plugs,its all new. everything.

 

You might try bypassing the ballast resistor to verify its OK, but if it starts don't let it run long without it in the circuit.

 

i was kinda trying things like that, but its brand new,the old stuff wasnt workign so i got all new stuff,to replace and still doesnt work.

as i mentioned about the symtom its having is leading to believe its something about the pickup/trigger, since the coil isnt blinking with a test light, but its a new dist,and i adjusted the pickup. its just not putting anything out but the coil is putting it in,at least the coil wire does have spark,but nothing else is coming out after that. im so lost!

 

had some bad quality control problems with pertronix

the mallory unilite has been good

 

Some helpful stuff here on the basic diag of the system, although it sounds like you've covered most of it. http://www.moparaction.com/Tech/archive/roadside.html

 

When you say your getting spark at the coil, are you saying primary or secondary? Does your wiring look at all like this?

 

the car isnt here,so i cant tell you off hand, what i mean is from the coil wire to the cap theres spark.