So I ran into another problem. The connector on the 3 wires coming out of the dizzy crumbled in my hands. I found a used dizzy and was going to cut off the pigtail and solder it to my dizzy wires, except that my wires are so brittle I can’t strip any of the insulation without breaking most of the strands. I had a major exhaust leak for several years and I suspect that basically cooked these wire. So.....I’m seriously considering just putting in an HEI. Any input on these ignitions would be great because the prices are a really wide range. Specifically, what makes the Davis worth the extra $250-300?







Also, what’s the process for wiring these?

 

In post 6 that black wire with the female spade in your hand is not necessary....unless the other positive wire has failed and someone added it in, or someone was running that wire to an electric choke, which is not the best idea...the electric choke should get it's power from the alternator.

Follow the excellent wiring diagrams that caravaggio2000 put up in post 7...they will get you there.

 

Have used a few of the China HEI dizzy's over the years without issue....beside being extremely ugly, they are simply and work ok. Verify that the dizzy gear is compatible with your camshaft (usually Windsor issue with roller cams) which you should be fine if you have a standard/stock cast iron flat tapped cam in the engine.

Can't speak for the DUI but have not had any issues with the cheaper stuff.....MSD is also way overprice and much of their stuff comes from overseas also now.

 

I’d be willing to bet you are right about that wire going to the electric choke. I replaced my Motorcraft carb with a Holly that has manual choke. Getting the Motorcraft rebuilt and put back on because the truck ran poorly with the Holly.

I paid $55 for that MSD coil. I’ll probably return it and get the $90 Chinese HEI dizzy from Amazon so I can have it Tuesday and return the coil. For an extra $35, I delete bad wires and my ICM and dizzy caps I have now are Chinese anyway...

 

....Just run an unresisted switched 12v wire to the positive on the dizzy and your done. Use a 12 gauge or thicker wire because you are powering the coil and the module with the same wire....you can also use 2 lighter gauge wires together to the single dizzy positve connection as well.

The other connection on the dizzy is the tach output.

Also to be clear, the choke gets its power from the small black and white wire from the alternator, so when the alternator stops turning, it no longer sends voltage to the choke.

 

It sounds like you are starting to throw money at the problems, which is never a good idea.

Your Holley carb... it probably just needs to be tuned. The motorcraft is also good when rebuilt, but it will probably need to be tuned as well once you put it back on.

Your distributor is probably okay. If the wires are an issue you can still rewire them pre-connector. You could also send it out to someone else to rebuild. If you really feel you have to you could go to any auto parts store and get a replacement D2 oem style distributor. Personally I'd look on the classifieds here for someone that has one they know is in working order they are selling. By the way, do you know which type of distributor gear your engine needs? If you get the wrong one it could turn into a problem bigger than no spark.

I'd put whatever you did to the starter relay back to stock.

Knock out one problem at a time or you will get overwhelmed. Start with the coil and related wiring. Why did you replace the coil to begin with?

The thing that will help people help you is posting a lot of pictures. Take good pictures of the entire engine bay, all the wiring you are talking about (with air cleaner off), etc.

This video isn't for Ford's per say, but it will show how you could test the coil and dizzy as stated above.

 

I’ll concede that if we hadn’t tried to replace the coil, this can of worms would not have opened. My brother wanted to make my engine bay sexy and I was happy to do it. We got chrome valve covers and air cleaner, blue high performance spark plug wires, wire organizers, blue boots to protect the plugs, the MSD coil, and we painted the fire wall and inner fenders glossy black enamel. The truck was running before we did this, so these upgrades were purely for vanity. However, let me put what happened into context. I am in the middle of a cab swap. My old cab had terminal cancer and I got a much cleaner cab. This swap turned out to be a pretty big project including cleaning, repairing, and painting parts of my frame. The wiring in the new cab was in bad condition and didn’t totally mate with the wiring in my engine bay, so I ended up pulling the wiring out of both cabs and putting my old harness into the new cab. Yes I broke my stock starter relay and chose to try something different and the truck has been starting fine for months with the Cole Hersee relay so I’m really not worried about that. When I first started hanging out in these forums I was told many times to get a fire extinguisher for the truck which I did, and to consider replacing all the wiring. I called Centech and asked about buying a whole new harness for my truck and that guy told me I should get an HEI and that Duraspark was “junk.” I rejected his advice and felt that there was nothing wrong with my ignition system and also didn’t feel up to the task of rewiring my whole truck, so I sort of gave up on that idea for a while. But now that I started messing with my ignition system and have unwrapped and examined the wiring, I find that most of the wiring that sits on or around the motor is toasted. I mean wires are practically melted together, brittle, plastic connectors crumbling...it’s amazing I’ve been driving the truck almost daily for 5 years and haven’t burned it down. I ordered a $90 HEI, so it’s really pretty reasonable and the simplicity and being able to delete some of these wires is the main appeal. I don’t know whether Duraspark or HEI is better or more reliable in my truck. I will make sure the gear on the new dizzy matches the old one so I don’t break anything. As for the carb, the Holley might not be tuned right. The guy that is rebuilding my Motorcraft has a vacuum gauge so we will find out if that was part of the problem. The Motorcraft carb was super gunked up, so I’m glad the Holley gave me the opportunity to get it rebuilt. Thanks for all the input you all have given. This thread has been hugely informative and helpful.

 

The wire to the HEI dizzy needs to be hot at both start and run right? Can I just use the red and white wires that went to the ICM? And for the electric choke I have to splice into the stator wire? I installed a 3g alt and made that wire really short because it only had to reach about a half an inch.

 

As for your choke you should not splice into the stator wire to feed the choke. This is the run sense for the internal regulator and feeding the choke off it may lead to erratic operation due to the high draw of the choke.
On vehicles, with elec chokes, it is best to skip the 3G installation or swap to a 12V choke cap and some sort of switch such as oil pressure to turn the choke off if the engine is not running.

It is a shame that you decided to go with the GM style HEI system. Besides being just ugly (least on chevs they are up against the firewall) some of the lower cost ones are of dubious quality and it may have clearance issues on some applications..
The DS II system is far more reliable and easier to diagnose and does not suffer the carbon tracking issues of the GM HEI systems.. Mind you DS II is not an HEI system, DS I is though. And you should not use the feeds for the DS module to feed the HEI dist as the draw is to high. Ideally, you need to run a dedicated power lead for it.

 

Since you have a 3g installed, matthewq4b is correct do not use any wires from an internally regulated alternator such as a 3g for the choke or anything not alternator function related. Ford did use that wire for the choke exclusively on the on externally regulated alternators such as the stock one that was on your truck.

These trucks don't have the wiring in them for what most people need nowadays....upgrading the alternator is an indication that you need more juice and circuits.

Here is what I use on the turbo cars to run an electric fuel pump, electric vacuum pump, and electric meth injection pump simultaneously when the demand is there:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Battery-Iso...cAAOSwaB5XjVeo

That continuous relay is activated by a low amp wire that is hot in crank and run...never connect wires from circuits that are energized differently....example is because someone connects crank wire with a run wire, simply turning the key to the on position could cause the engine to crank....and if it starts, the starter could be still spinning because the circuits are back feeding each other. Also, never share a circuit with an electric motor unless it's for other motors that are all either off or on without speed selection such as the 3 motors mentioned above..... another example is tapping into a heater motor circuit and even though you shut the key off, the electric motor turns into a generator while winding down, keeping whatever is on that circuit live for a few extra seconds. This is also the reason diodes were created but thats a topic for another day.

Then I feed this fuse block with that relay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Blue-Sea-Sy...b96b385590baec

You now have 80 amps (higher amp solenoids are available) at your disposal, not taxing the stock system (especially with a 3g) whatsoever....6 circuits available, one for dizzy, kc lights, stereo, subs etc...electric motor can be added but the power should come out of the fuse block then to another smaller continuous relay, otherwise if say your running an electric fuel pump, and the engine is shut down key off, the electric motor would energize the rest of the circuits during wind down on the fuse block until the pump stopped turning....so that would keep the engine running for a little while longer...it's funny I have seen this watching an engine take about 5 seconds finally quit rotating. Generally speeking, keep electric motors on there own dedicated circuits.

If you click on the 79 Sleeper link in my sig, post 41 show's one on these set ups. There it is a light duty wire from under the dash that is hot in on and crank. That hot goes through an inertia switch for safety, then activates the high amp continuous realay, which powers the fuse block directly from the battery. The original coil wire hot could be used to activate the solenoid, it takes very little juice to activate and the resistor would be unnoticed...they take so little juice, they can be activated through a test light.

On the dizzy, pertronix is also an option to have excellent spark and even a rev limiter built in, keeping a nicer stock look. That also makes the system become one wire, but it also needs to be 12 gauge or better because you are still running the amp and coil....negative on the coil is the tach output.

 

Regardless the choke should only be hot when the engine is physically running, the reason for this is so the cap does not heat up and pull the choke off before the engine has got up to temp.
The example you start the truck and walk away to let it warm up, the truck then stalls the choke cap in a few mins will be up to temp pulling the choke off fully now the restart could be a real B.
In the 12V choke application, Ford used either an oil pressure switch or ECU/ECM or other control circuity to feed the choke only when the engine was running.
And unless you are running Elec cooling fans a kick-*** stereo system or lots of additional lighting, there is no need to do a 3G upgrade as the 1g system is more than capable of meeting the demand. The issue seems to be with the wiring systems in these trucks are ageing and faults do occur so instead of fixing wiring the issues these 3g Swaps get done many of which are done in less than an ideal manner.

 

Well, the 3g swap is water under the bridge now. I may add some power windows or other stuff that make use of the extra capacity someday. And for right now I’m fine with running no choke. I was mainly asking about that out of curiosity in case I want to wire that up at some point. As for the dizzy, I’m gonna take Sick6’s advice and use a relay. I’ll use the red/green coil power wire to activate it. I was planning to put an under hood fuse/relay box anyway to clean up that whole area near the battery. When I did the 3g upgrade I deleted the power to the horn and whenever I fix that I also want to get rid of that crusty looking horn relay on the inner fender. I envision a single clean organized weatherproof power distribution box to house relays, fuses, and stuff that is currently on power junction lugs connected to the starter relay. For anyone concerned about Chinese parts, here’s what I’ve got now:





Here’s an example of the condition of my wires:



And here’s the new dizzy



With it being blue I don’t think it will look that bad. I already have a spacer on my air cleaner. I mean, you guys wouldn’t rather have me swap a Chevy LS into the truck so the dizzy will look better, right? Lol.

 

It's kind of like trailer houses vs stick built homes....as long as either are well kept (wire sorting in your case) things can look just fine.

Here is a pic of a customer car to give more idea's as far as electrical flow. The wiring is not all done yet in this pic, but the small relay is for the meth pump and is triggered from the efi system on the white wire when needed.

 

If you click on 89 fun ton thread in my sig, on post 256 you can see the cube type continuous relay...I knew I only needed a couple circuits so just used circuit breakers instead of a fuse block....just some more ideas/options.

 

Did you have time to get it up and running today? Curious to see how it all fits and works. After all this, you deserve a break and having everything work as expected!
And obviously you've moved on from the early questions, and have received all the good advice that's fit to print. But there were a couple of things I wanted to touch on anyway. Just to drag out the inevitable!

That was perfectly fine and the correct thing to do. I think you just ran up against multiple issues, not the least of which is the old and clapped out wiring!

The Black wire in your diagram was not a connecting "wire" per sé. It's the main coil wire to the center of the distributor (commonly called the "HT Lead" for "high tension" I believe?) which in your case is now Blue with the new plug wires.
So you were not going crazy. It was just not the Black wire you were looking for.

Correct. And it does make a difference, but not for sparking. Just for living a long life.
As was also said, the originals lasted in that position. But it has been well documented that the original Ford (mustard top) coils were some of the best available at the time, and were very consistently built and filled with the cooling oil that kept them from overheating in the lay-down position.
Aftermarket coils are not all that consistent, and while some will live long and prosper in that position, the manufacturers all recommend against it just in case. As the other comments show is well warranted. Nobody wants a dead engine with busted open coil and oil all over the top of the engine. At the furthest point in your journey away from home of course.

The capacitor is the radio noise suppressor. The second wire is not stock. It was added by someone after leaving the factory. No way to know anymore what it was for.
The noise suppressor should actually be disconnected temporarily when doing this kind of "no spark" testing. They're a good thing to have, but if they fail to ground it will stop the coil from producing a spark. So whenever you're trying to track down a no-spark condition, disconnect the capacitor at the coil to see if that changes anything. If not you can hook it back up.

No. Even without the I wire you should still get a spark. It might not be as strong as it would be with the extra boost from the starter relay, but it'll still spark.

When you see this condition, rotate the engine (or the distributor for that matter, if it's already loose) to see if the 12v disappears from the negative side at some point. If it does not, then this is a big problem and you need to find out why. When the trigger is in the right position in the distributor the negative side should have no voltage on it at all.
As the distributor rotates and the trigger opens and closes the circuit (through the module in your case) the voltage will pulse on and off. It's actually grounding the coil, which releases the spark.
But it has to pulsate/oscillate/whateverate in order to do it's thing.

Yeah, it happens. I'm betting it was just ready to go and you put it over the edge by painting the firewall!
With the condition of the other wires, it's no wonder it finally failed to run. You just happened to hasten it along with your fun-day additions maybe.

Not sure why anyone (even Jim at Centech) would say the Dura Spark is junk, other than the fact that it's left so many hobbyists frustrated at it's much more complicated wiring and many changes over the years. I think that while I'm not a huge fan of the HEI, the GM engineers really hit a home run both from a performance standpoint, but mainly from a wiring simplicity standpoint. Can't argue that it's not simpler to hood up!
But that damn cap does get in the way!

In at least one argument in favor of the DS setup, every manufacturer and their brother now uses the original DS trigger mechanism in their custom distributors. I've even seen some of the HEI distributors with the GM externals and modules, but with the Dura Spark trigger inside!
But all the aftermarket companies also did away with the more finicky wiring aspects as well.
In an old custom hot-rodding ignition book by Chris Jacobs he said the best ignition out there would be a Ford distributor with a Chrysler ignition modulator and special coil. Or in a pinch the original Ford coils!

Oh well, sorry to rehash some of that stuff that had already been answered by the others. Guess I'm up late and just felt like putting them in one post and touching on a couple of small items that might have been missed.
Good luck with the HEI. Most have a good experience with them. But don't re-gap the plugs to .055" just yet! Keep them at the Dura Spark gappage for now, until you get it running and want to experiment a bit with what gap works best for you.

Paul