. Engine looked great, even before it was painted... Could you measure the appropriate diameters/heights on the old and new distributors and see where the problem is coming from? Is there supposed to be a gasket under the cap?

 

I'll compare the two distributors and try to figure out where the dimensional variance is occurring. To my knowledge there is not any gasket. I ordered a complete distributor with a new cap and vacuum advance, so if there was a required gasket it should have been included.

On a different note: Does anyone know where I can buy ZDDP additive? I went to Autozone and O'Rielly's without any luck. The only thing O'Riellys had was engine break-in oil additive from Lucus. I guess I could always order some online?

 

I got mine from Tim. But I've also gotten it at parts stores in the past. And from Amazon.

 

I got one bottle from Tim, but I plan to add it with every oil change. I put in an order for 4 bottles through amazon yesterday. That should keep me stocked for a while.

 

see if the active ingredient in the Lucas stuff has ZDDP. (probably has) It will be on the bottle if it has it.

 

It does, but I think it has a bunch of other stuff in it also. I'm just going to stick with the ZDDP plus. It's proven and I know it will give me what I need. I don't want to risk a $3500 engine with something I'm not sure about.

 

I finally got the motor all buttoned up this weekend. She runs!!!! Before I fired it up I had to finish all the wiring, fuel lines, and vacuum lines. I combined parts between the old distributor and the new one and I was able to get everything nice and tight, but I do not trust the Cardone Select distributor. It will do for now, but I plan on replacing it soon. Do NOT buy!

I got some VHT header paint and decided to paint my flowtechs a little better. I know it's probably pointless since it will most likely flake off in a year, but it made me feel better. I scratched the hell out of them getting them in the truck, which made painting them even more pointless. The instructions sucked. They said to remove the starter for the passenger side headers, but that would have been pointless. The easiest thing was to un-bolt the motor mount and lift the engine about an inch. Drivers side went in fine with the clutch linkage out. One thing that really irritated me was the ARP header fasteners I bought. They were stainless steel and precision machined, but they were too short!!! I was only able to get one or two threads to catch, and these flowtechs have relatively thin flanges... I ended up having to use the fasteners supplied with the headers. So much for $35 ARPs....


I also dropped the fuel tank and drained all the stinky nasty gas out of it. While it was down I decided to undercoat it some more. The PO (My great uncle) had undercoated it years ago and the tank was in GREAT shape. Most of the undercoating was still on it, but I re-coated it anyway.
Before:


After:



After reinstalling the tank, I finally got to install my shiny new 1806 Edelbrock! Right out of the box this thing ran great with only minimal tuning. I was very impressed. Looks good too!



The finished product:



Video:

Still has open headers until I get it to the exhaust shop.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1hNpb8MA1l8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

One thing that has me stumped is my coil. It's and MSD Blaster 2F coil and I put an in line .8 ohm ballast resistor like they said to. I noticed that the coil will get Very warm and sometimes the whole truck will die and loose spark. I've also noticed that the wires behind my ignition key switch will get warm (not hot) I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. I have double, triple, and quadruple checked all my grounds, they all look fine. Anyone have any ideas? It normal for a hotter coil like my MSD to get very warm?

 

. Engine looking and sounding great... my stock coil also gets very hot... engine died the other day and I thought it might be the coil... but it was a corroded connection in the wiring for the capacitor on the side of the coil... got a set of Summit headers to put on mine... may be the same ones...

 

Sounds good! What muff are you going to use? Hopefully something mild and low like a Magnaflow.

As for the coil, you may be pulling too much current. I don't know the resistance of your coil, but the stock coil is supposed to be about 1.5 ohms. Was the .8 ohm ballast resistor if you are running the DS-II module or the MSD module? Which one are you running?

 

No, the .8ohm was for use with the factory Ford ignition system. (Which I've retained other than the coil)

I still haven't decided on mufflers yet. I don't want it stupid loud. A good tone is most important to me. I like Magnaflows but they are expensive. I was thinking about glass packs, but that might be too loud, especially with headers. I want a good deep tone, so a packed muffler (like magnaflow) might be my best bet. More research is in order before I decide on mufflers... YouTube, should be a good starting point. The rest of the exhaust I was thinking I'd run 2.5" all the way and 45'd out the back.

 

The 80-86 trucks run a resistor wire in the harness right off the switch. I wonder if that's what is getting hot. Or are you running your resistor off some other supply? The truck running rough after a length of time sounds like something doesn't like the heat and the current associated with it. If you used another power source what is it and what did you do with the end of the stock coil power?

 

. Might try a new capacitor/condenser on the coil if heat is making it run rough...

 

The truck never ran rough. It just totally died. As if someone shut of the key. I installed the old coil (which is still good) and I still didn't have spark. After it sat a while it started fine. It also died one time after an initial test drive and I went to move it. I wiggled the ignition switch wires and it started. That's why I'm wondering if I may have a bad ignition switch...

 

Could be a bad switch. But it could be the module. When/if it dies again, check for voltage on the positive side of the coil. You should see something like 6-8 volts, assuming the coil has about 1 ohm of resistance. If you don't have voltage then there is something failing in the supply side, like maybe the switch. And that may explain the hot wires - the switch itself is getting hot and heating the wires connected to it.

If you have voltage on the positive side of the coil then check the negative side. It should show basically zero volts as the DS box should have that side essentially grounded. If it is the same as the positive side it probably means the box is failing. But have someone crank the engine and watch the voltage on the negative side of the coil - it should bounce all over the map showing that the DS box is working.

 

That's just the kind of advice I needed to further look into this. Thanks a lot! The module is fairly new, so I hope it didn't go out already, but I know they have a notorious reputation of failing at the worst times. I appreciate all the help, thank you. I will check those things and report back.