Hey everyone, I was out cruising in the Vette after finally fixing the brakes and finishing rebuilding the rear suspension. Drives soooo nice now. Anyway, as I pulled into my neighborhood, there was a large backfire, and the engine died. She had heated up to 250 also.

So I wait for a while for the engine to cool down, check all the wires, see if there's water in the tank, etc... everything looks fine, but no fire! It's cranking, but no spark. So I get to push my car all the way home (about an 1/8th of a mile). It's a GREAT calf workout!

Come home, out of the rain, car is inside the garage, and I let it sit overnight. Next day, crank, nothing. Still no spark. The PO had put MSD and an Exxel Distrib on there. I checked the coil, no power coming out of the coil. So I replaced that. Silly me, I should have checked further back. The power *seems* to be dying at the MSD module. I want to know for sure, so I'm planning on taking the power from the module, directly to the coil, but I need some sort of resistance there? It says so on the coil. I dunno what to do. Should I get another MSD unit? Where's the best place for that? Or should I return it to some sort of stock setup? What's the pros and cons of having MSD?

Man, such a headache

Ah well, I've been demoted to the Toyota for a while

Imran, 74 Convt Paper-Weight

Hook a hot wire directly to the positive terminal of the coil and try to fire it . You can run the ignition for a short period of time to test it with no bad effects . What kind of distributor are you running ? Is it elctronic or points type ? E/mail me if you are still having problems perhaps I can help you.

Geo

|UPDATED|7/14/2002 8:25:46 PM|/UPDATED|

|QUOTE|Imran said:

Ah well, I've been demoted to the Toyota for a while

Imran, 74 Convt Paper-Weight |/QUOTE|

Imran,

If I remember correctly your Toyota is an MR2. Lots better than the Toyota I got demoted to tonight =) Go 90 Camry. My Vette is not quite a paper weight, just no night driving for a bit.

Scot

|QUOTE|Paragon75Ray said: |QUOTE|Imran said:

Ah well, I've been demoted to the Toyota for a while

Imran, 74 Convt Paper-Weight |/QUOTE|

Imran,

If I remember correctly your Toyota is an MR2. Lots better than the Toyota I got demoted to tonight =) Go 90 Camry. My Vette is not quite a paper weight, just no night driving for a bit.

Scot|/QUOTE|

Scot,
I was just playing around, I call my vette weird names as I get frustrated, doesn't mean I don't love her. She's been called a paper weight, an engine stand, a blood-mobile, gas chamber, etc etc.. and yeah, the Toyo isn't bad, but it's no Vette

I hope you get your Vette out and running soon.

Imran

|QUOTE|4webers said: Hook a hot wire directly to the positive terminal of the coil and try to fire it . You can run the ignition for a short period of time to test it with no bad effects . What kind of distributor are you running ? Is it elctronic or points type ? E/mail me if you are still having problems perhaps I can help you.

Geo


|/QUOTE|

Geo,

First of all, beautiful engine you have there. I was drooling for a little bit. Have any more detailed pics?

About the spark issue. I put a hot wire on the coil, it started heating up quite a bit when I cranked it, so I got scared and took it off. This was on a new coil that I bought. I haven't had a chance to go try again on the car since reading your post, but will do that this afternoon hopefully and let you know. Thanks for your help

Imran - 74 Convt

Just a thought....if you ran a 12-volt wire to one side of the coil...and the coil started heating up, then the other side is going directly to ground. Do you still have points? Are they opening? Or is the wire from the coil into the dist rubbing and grounding out.

I'm not sure if your '74 had points or electronics, but if it has points, I've seen the wire chaff and ground out....which would cause the coil to heat up like you described. I've also seen the rubbing block on the back of the point break.....when that happens the point close and don't open as the dist cam comes around.

Good luck....