Intermittent No start.

[Mike69cuda]

When I was having issues I wired up two LEDs under the dash. One went to the power side of the ballast resistor and one went to the plus side of the coil. I could watch them when I was having a no start to see if I had power. That way I could tell where I was losing power.

They never went out so I learned that power to the coil wasn’t my issue.

Then I hooked up a handheld meter with a frequency counter on it. I hooked it to the negative side of the coil. When the car was running it would show a frequency. Forgot what it was, maybe 5KHz. When the car cut out, there was no reading on the meter. Then I knew it was the ECU or the distributor pickup. Replaced the pickup. No change. Changed the ECU. That fixed it,

 

[JoePole1]

Thanks Beast and all. That is some good info to help me troubleshoot. I'm going to keep a meter with me on the road and I always carry spare ballast, vreg, coil and ign module. I did notice a while back that when a helper turned the key to run (before start) that I could hear what sounded like a spark jump around the back of the engine coil area. It went away but I will go over the wiring carefully. It was an Arizona car when I purchased it 15 yrs ago and the wiring is pretty brittle. OK. Let's say it turns out to be the ignition switch. Do you guys have any brand you would recommend or what to avoid? Looks to be a PITA to replace.