Just thought I'd share some info and clear up some wrong info I've encountered.
Told my boss I'd be in around noon because I needed to swap out my module and stator on my '80 f150 5.0 v8 c6 2wd truck that started the 'die for no reason and starts back up' thing about a week before. Figured it would be about 20 minutes for each project..lol..
Saw for myself as I read while investigating this conundrum that sure enough I'd left my ignition on for about an hour without the truck running about a week prior to the first engine failure occured. So, #1 ignition modules do get burned up this way. #2 If the vehicle's moving at time of failure absence of pwr brakes and steering forces fluid out the reservoirs.
#3 Cheap modules look shiny and new but definitely come bad right out of the box. I had just finished tightening the last bolt when I looked down to find the red wire just flopping around to nothing at the connector end. Spliced it directly to the white wire which is #4 The red and white are reversed but don't rereverse them. They are just reversed red-white, white-red. If you plug it in to the pigtail it's right. #5 the cheap ******* module I hooked up was also wrong color matching to 2 other colors in the other pigtail. Turned over and over like the coil wire was pulled. Went back and spent $20 more for a Borg Warner. The white/red are reversed but the other colors mated up fine. Also went to a picknpull and spent $15 on a harness that would go from 2module pigtails and on to the distributor pigtail and on to the coil connector. Thought I'd tape it up good first then tried hooking it up and realized the coil bracket wouldn't reach. #6 Pull coil mount bracket and loosen scre so coil turns in the sleeve to better position itself for connector attachment. Just barely made it. The harness also includes the wire for the temp sender and the wire for the oil dummy light. Fired up the new module and seemed a little rough, but it was cold. Next day after reading several places that to replace stator the distributor must be pulled, I got my '80 shop manual I acquired from Arctic dude at FTE and read that #7 at least on my 1980 all I had to do was pry the armature up, pull rollpin, fish out the wire keeper thingy, remove the e clip on the vac advance rod and unscrew the ground connector. Used a large deep socket to reseat armature and tapped the old roll pin back into the old slot. Hadn't planned ahead so didn't know that book says #8 use new roll pin and use other slot (180 deg.) across from old roll pin slot. The new stator was Borg Warner as well.
I fired it up and all is sweet and smooth as buttah!!! Felt so good I even changed the oil too.
Hope this helps anyone out there looking for info.