thanks, trail beast.
i do have the flame thrower coil that came with the ignitor so i think i'm good there? after i jumped the ballast it did seem to wake it up a little which is nice, but now at wot the thing goes limp on me. feels ok up to about 3k revs then it reaches a consistent sputter/loss of power/humming noise. almost feels like it's out of gas then if i back off the throttle it comes back to life. this didn't happen with my points.