Ignition/starting problem

Excellent result. Everybody agreed on the likely problem, the OP was also thinking along those lines and found it.

I also was confused by the key switch. When I did my custom wiring, I ran only the IGN wire since I wasn't going to use a ballast. I had the same result. It wouldn't fire when cranking, but as I released crank, it sometimes fired. I then found that IGN (blue) is powered only in "run", not in "crank". I just jumpered IGN2 to IGN at the key switch connector to fix that.

A question is why Mopar designed it that way, since it would have been easy to have the switch power IGN in both "run" and "crank" positions. The only advantage I can see in not powering IGN during cranking is that the alternator Vreg is then not powered and thus not loading the engine. But, the Vreg is still "back-feed" thru the 0.5 ohm ballast and since the alternator field is >5 ohm it would still get powered. Anybody ideas why they designed the key such? I wonder what GM & Ford did since they also had ballasts (or ballasted wires).