Note: The 351 is out of an 89, my truck is a 92.

OK, so i have been slogging through a 302 to 351 swap and i have finally got myself in trouble. Something is clearly wrong with the electrical components of my engine. I have a couple distinct problems.

First, I wasnt getting any power past the engine compartment; power windows, locks, lights, dash gauges, fuel pump etc were completely dead. Today I managed to track that problem to the tow 10 gauge yellow wires that deliver power to the dash and what not. Having fixed that, I have encountered two more problems.

The first thing that went wrrong was that i had no spark. I have power to the BATT terminal of the coil, but no spark from the coil on down. I tried another coil from the 302 and wasnt getting any spark from it either. This makes me suspect the TFI. Going back to the Note in the beginning of my post, the 92 harness is outfitted for a fenderwell mounted TFI. The 89 351 has a distributor mounted TFI. I should have taken the time and routed the distributor mounted TFI to the firewall... but for some reason i extended the wires on the clip to the dist. mounted TFI and called it a day. Should I not have done this? Could this cause a perfectly good, working TFI to not function properly and cause the no-spark situation?


Also, Fuse #20 (50amps) in the power distribution box (located on the drivers side fenderwell) was blown. I havent found out what that fuse does, but it wasnt blown before and I am pretty sure that I had spark before. So, I replaced it, but now I have come to my second problem.



The second problem I have encountered: My ignition was wired by the PO to use a push-start button. The key must be in the "RUN" position and then the button is pushed, and that activates the starter. This system is not working at all, and I dont think that I am going to deal with it right now because I have bigger fish to fry. To get around it, I had been bypassing the starter relay (or starter solenoid as some people call it) mounted on the pass. side fenderwell just behind the battery. This was effective, and activated the starter just fine for my spark tests and to try to start the engine in general.

Having replaced fuse #20, I disconnected the ignition coil wire and prepared for another spark test. But, to my ever increasing dismay, as soon as I made contact between the two terminals on the starter relay(solenoid) I heard it click, but got NOTHING from the starter or anything else. In addition, the whole dash went out, the fuel pump deactivated, etc. As soon as i made that connection the whole truck went completely dead.

With images of a fried computer and my emaciated wallet, i disconnected the cable i was using to bypass the relay/solenoid and went to the dash to see if things had went back to normal. Sure enough, a quick turn of the key and the dash lit up, the fuel pump activated, lights worked, etc. Everythign went back to normal. I went back to try a second time, and the whole truck went dead again...

So now, I am unsure if i have fixed my no-spark problem with a new 50amp fuse for the #20 slot because i cant get the engine to turn over... oh yeah, and i also cant get the engine to turn over, so even if i do have spark i now have no starter...

Anyone have any ideas/answers to what my problems are/may be? Any general areas to check?

Does anyone know what the elusive fuse #20 does?

Lastly, if anyone is in the new england area (i live in Gloucester, MA [that fishing city/island as far east bum**** as you can go in MA north of boston... were the "perfect storm" movie was filmed]) and would like to try to help me, i would really appreciate some help from someone with better knowledge of automotive electronics.

Thanks for ANY help, im really in a bit of a jam here, anything at all is appreciated.

SM