school me on dist

Sorry, I forgot the truck had a points conversion (w/ ballast resistor I assume), so a Mopar electronic ign conversion would be much easier.

I thought to verify my claim that a 1986 factory ignition would not have a ballast and ran across the following post which tells you exactly how to convert to an earlier Mopar ignition (google is your friend):
http://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen-ram-tech/361707-1986-dodge-ram-w150-ignition-problem.html

As in the post, I wouldn't bother trying to bypass the ballast while cranking. Indeed, I did that in my 65 Dart when I wired a Crane XR700 as an interim setup. It needed a ballast and I hadn't wired IGN2 to the engine bay, so I just run IGN1 & IGN2 (combined at key) to the ballast. It fires up fine without bypassing it.

BTW, I must eat half a crow. While a Mopar 1986 slant or V-8 would not have a ballast, the 4 cyl trucks in 1986 did. Probably a Jap-Mopar. I recall reading that the Jap cars were way behind the U.S., with Honda still using points into the 1990's.