crj1968 said

yes ECU is the ignition box (not HEI, but similar)

when you direct wired it to drive it home- how did you do this? Wire from battery to ballast?

Possibly your dual ballast is in backwards...it can work that way, but makes for hard starting- a car i bought recently had the ballast upside down for lack of a better way to say it. There's a U -shape notch in one side to determine how it goes. 67Dart273's test above will sort that out for you....

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67Dart273 said

I've been known to "rig" a temporary pilot lamp or meter connection so I can monitor a "suspect." See if the coil + is getting voltage here is how

When you go to start it, turn the key to "run" FIRST. Look at coil+. It should be say, 6-8 maybe 10V and NOT as high as battery. This shows it's getting power, drawn "down" through the ballast AND THAT the ECU is grounded AND drawing current.

Next crank it using the key and look again at coil+ Now it should be "same as battery" and that is, if the battery is pulling down, say, 11.5--11V during crank, then coil+ should be "same."

Yesterday morning I did as you suggested. Coil+ was 4.2 and 4.2, 10.7 top of ballast and 10.5, 10.7 accross the bottom.

Crank it and it starts with only 6.8 at coil+ and 6.8/13.7 accross top of ballast @ approx 1k rpm

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