mguner
How many is too many?
My friend Ronnie came by wanting to know about wiring the electronic ignition conversion on his 68 Dart. He had some odd brand of conversion kit with an orange box and the two terminal resistor with the pretty much standard diagram. Apparently he had another friend (a Chevy guy) come by and help him with the installation. Unfortunately the good intentions combined with karma, Murphys Law and a few other stupernatural forces along the way. No thats not a spelling error. I text my wife that Im going to stop by a friends and help him with some wiring and it shouldnt take long. Big mistake!
The car has a Magnum 360 with Edelbrock heads and a later model transmission that I didnt even look at with the 3 pin neutral safety switch. Ronnie was telling me that if he wired it one way the starter immediately engaged and another it wouldnt crank at all. I immediately thought about FABO! How many times do we see posts about starter relays and electronic ignition? Ok Ronnie, just ground the spade terminal that is parallel to the relay case and do not apply power to it. This will bypass the neutral safety switch since you dont have that part of the harness yet or the correct switch for the 68. Ronnie was confused by the fact that that parallel terminal was hot when he turned the key to start. Of course it is, it is being feed by the cockeyed terminal with the yellow wire and must run to ground for the relay to energize! Then it hit me Mr. Chevy guy didnt even realize the wiring for everything was already in place! Some of you may not either, especially if you get a diagram with a kit that doesnt clarify things. The chassis wiring for a points ignition is identical to the electronic two terminal resistor conversion. The negative terminal from the coil goes to the points in the distributor and since we remove the points distributor you now run the black wire with the yellow tracer to the negative coil terminal. The only other wire you need to mess with is to run the blue wire with the yellow tracer to the upstream side of the ballast resistor. This kit already had the distributor leads wired in with the connector so other than customizing the lengths for location of the control module it is a done deal .. So I thought.
12 volts to the ballast input 9 volts coming out, good grounds from the box, engine and chassis. I pull the coil wire and hold it close to the valve cover and have Ronnie crank it. Nothing. So I pull the distributor cap and check the reluctor gap. It looked good but what the heck, I close it up a tiny bit more and with the ignition hot swing the rotor back and forth trying to trigger a spark, still nothing. I should have suspected something by the look of the components at this point. The pickup coil looked like it had medical tape as an outer wrap and the adjustment screw was Philips head. The travel range for adjustment was severely biased towards the reluctor as well. Ok still no spark and I dont have my diode handy to check the pulse of the distributor so we grab another distributor from somewhere in the shop and plug it in and spin it. Still nothing. Ronnie has another kit so I take the orange box from it and plug it in ground it good and crank it. NOTHING! Im talking to myself at this point. I know my wiring is good and Ive tried various components, the coil is new but what the heck. We grab a crusty old faded coil and plug it in just because. I didnt think the coil was an issue since I had gotten a jolt from the new one we had on when Ronnie turned the ignition off, but at this point what the heck. We crank it again and it looks like maybe we are there but the battery he has in the car is junk and the spark I was getting was just from the pulses of power interruption from the starter pulling off the surface voltage . CRAP! We get another battery and try it. Another crap battery and no sign of spark from the coil wire. Ronnie finds another battery that has some stuff to it and we put it in. This time the engine turns over with authority but still so spark. I ask Ronnie if he has another module somewhere and in a few seconds he comes back with the panel from an old industrial engine with a chrome box on it. I pull the box off and plug it in to the car and crank it. NOTHING! Grab me another distributor if you have one. He comes back with an OEM unit with a little dust on it, I plug it in and spin it. BRRRRAP! Houston we have ignition! I check the rotor indexing and swap out the old for the new. Ronnie runs the fuel pump till the bowls fill up on the holley we pump it a few quirts and crank it. One hard hit and a cough so I back the timing up just a hair, another crank and the engine roars to life. Happy dance! At this point I would love to back track and see just exactly which components would not work in this combination but two hours have gone by and we are both just happy as hell to see it run. All that junk you accumulate can sure come in handy!
The car has a Magnum 360 with Edelbrock heads and a later model transmission that I didnt even look at with the 3 pin neutral safety switch. Ronnie was telling me that if he wired it one way the starter immediately engaged and another it wouldnt crank at all. I immediately thought about FABO! How many times do we see posts about starter relays and electronic ignition? Ok Ronnie, just ground the spade terminal that is parallel to the relay case and do not apply power to it. This will bypass the neutral safety switch since you dont have that part of the harness yet or the correct switch for the 68. Ronnie was confused by the fact that that parallel terminal was hot when he turned the key to start. Of course it is, it is being feed by the cockeyed terminal with the yellow wire and must run to ground for the relay to energize! Then it hit me Mr. Chevy guy didnt even realize the wiring for everything was already in place! Some of you may not either, especially if you get a diagram with a kit that doesnt clarify things. The chassis wiring for a points ignition is identical to the electronic two terminal resistor conversion. The negative terminal from the coil goes to the points in the distributor and since we remove the points distributor you now run the black wire with the yellow tracer to the negative coil terminal. The only other wire you need to mess with is to run the blue wire with the yellow tracer to the upstream side of the ballast resistor. This kit already had the distributor leads wired in with the connector so other than customizing the lengths for location of the control module it is a done deal .. So I thought.
12 volts to the ballast input 9 volts coming out, good grounds from the box, engine and chassis. I pull the coil wire and hold it close to the valve cover and have Ronnie crank it. Nothing. So I pull the distributor cap and check the reluctor gap. It looked good but what the heck, I close it up a tiny bit more and with the ignition hot swing the rotor back and forth trying to trigger a spark, still nothing. I should have suspected something by the look of the components at this point. The pickup coil looked like it had medical tape as an outer wrap and the adjustment screw was Philips head. The travel range for adjustment was severely biased towards the reluctor as well. Ok still no spark and I dont have my diode handy to check the pulse of the distributor so we grab another distributor from somewhere in the shop and plug it in and spin it. Still nothing. Ronnie has another kit so I take the orange box from it and plug it in ground it good and crank it. NOTHING! Im talking to myself at this point. I know my wiring is good and Ive tried various components, the coil is new but what the heck. We grab a crusty old faded coil and plug it in just because. I didnt think the coil was an issue since I had gotten a jolt from the new one we had on when Ronnie turned the ignition off, but at this point what the heck. We crank it again and it looks like maybe we are there but the battery he has in the car is junk and the spark I was getting was just from the pulses of power interruption from the starter pulling off the surface voltage . CRAP! We get another battery and try it. Another crap battery and no sign of spark from the coil wire. Ronnie finds another battery that has some stuff to it and we put it in. This time the engine turns over with authority but still so spark. I ask Ronnie if he has another module somewhere and in a few seconds he comes back with the panel from an old industrial engine with a chrome box on it. I pull the box off and plug it in to the car and crank it. NOTHING! Grab me another distributor if you have one. He comes back with an OEM unit with a little dust on it, I plug it in and spin it. BRRRRAP! Houston we have ignition! I check the rotor indexing and swap out the old for the new. Ronnie runs the fuel pump till the bowls fill up on the holley we pump it a few quirts and crank it. One hard hit and a cough so I back the timing up just a hair, another crank and the engine roars to life. Happy dance! At this point I would love to back track and see just exactly which components would not work in this combination but two hours have gone by and we are both just happy as hell to see it run. All that junk you accumulate can sure come in handy!
