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My 73 390 shut itself right off in line at the Chik-fil-a after work today. After a push to the parking lot, seeing that it had fuel, I narrowed it down to either the msd 6a box or the coil. I did the white wire test (only tool I had with me was a screw driver, so it worked out nicely) I could hear the box giving signal, but no spark off the coil plug. After 20 minutes of trying to get the tiny coil wires off I was able to switch it out with an old spare coil I had under the seat (This isn't the first time I've had a coil go bad in a vehicle!) and she started right up.
Now... is failure common with these MSD coils? I believe this one is less than a year old... though, I could be wrong, it was new in a box I found in my garage. The 6a box serial number dates it to 2000, so maybe the coil was bought then too. If failure is common, what coil do you guys that are running an MSD box use? Thanks.
I've only had one 6A box and one Blaster 2 coil from MSD circa 2004-5 and I still have both of them working fine. The coil on my 78 Bronco started acting up shortly after I bought the Bronco and I swapped it with the Blaster 2 that was on another truck and it's been working fine since then (about a year or so).
Msd products are the biggest waste of money out there. They do nothing for performance that a duraspark won't do on a stock or mild engine, and always cause headaches.
There is not a single msd product out there that I will personally ever consider buying.
They still make the pure race stuff here in the USA, but all the other crap is made overseas, I had a billet dist fail a module in 1500 miles and the stator failed at 3000 miles.
Just like most everything as soon as it's moved off shore to the cheapest bidder it goes to crap. See way more woes on msd than dura spark. Only had 1 Ford coil and 1 Duraspark module malfunction since I've been driving, granted Duraspark didn't come out till I'd been driving 6 years. Both of those malfunctions allowed me to let them cool and get home. Maybe I've been blessed.
I even tried a Pertronix distributor, was ok for a few months, started miss firing, they said to add a ground wire to the dist and verify full voltage, I did, it had a full 12v. they said they would send a new module but I had to send a pic of the old one with the wires cut off, I asked "what about just sending me one it's under warranty" no, I had to pay for it and get a refund if I wanted to keep the truck running.
The second module started miss firing when hot after a few months again, I put the Duraspark dist back in with a super old MSD box, runs great.