Went to the track tonite and tried to run on street tires, should know better,14.28 best time. Anyway it seems to have a miss so when I got home I decided to look under the hood and every plug was bleeding, just visable, from under the boot to the plug base. When I pulled a spark plug wire the coil started arcing to the negitive terminal to the central tower. The car has a point distributor with a MSD6 on it. I know I'll need wires, are there any that will fit my cap and will provide adaquite insulation, and how about the coil, it has the old Accel Super Stock coil on it now? Any ideas please, the car ran better times before the MSD. HELP!! Dave Berryou:
CAREFUL pullin those plug wires with MSD 6! Will BITE ya real good!!:eek2: :shock: Some people here swear by MSD 8.5mm Super conductors I tried them, they are real good, but I like Taylor Pro 409's 10.4mm much better! 135* boots work VERY WELL on a Buick. Kinda spendy at $97 from Summit, but WELL WORTH IT IMO!! And yes, even though they are 10.4mm, they still plug into stock distributor cap. I've used mine since '96 no problems.:TU: Their best feature in my eyes (besides the visual looks) is that the plug boots are permanetly bonded to the wires! http://store.summitracing.com/default.asp?target=department.asp&d=11&x=15&y=9 Made for You Products makes a very cool wire loom special for the FAT 10.4mm wires in whatever color.
Jeff Bite is RIGHT!! I always used to check for a miss by pulling plug wires, but being hardheaded it took me 3 times to start shutting the engine off between wires. Thanks for the reply, think I'll need to get a coil because of carbon tracking or will cleaning fix this one? Dave Berry
Re: BITE is RIGHT! :laugh: :laugh: I'm not sure I understand the carbon tracking Is it on the rotor/cap, or the coil? The cap/rotor really can't be cleaned effectively... if its bad. The coil, as long as its not leaking out the top and puts out a blue/purple spark, its good. If the spark is weak yellow/white, it should be replaced. With the MSD, make SURE you ground the plug wire good! Is the distributor stock points?
cap Dave, Make sure you buy a good quality cap! I bought a cap from the local parts store and the accell coil burnt it out the same day. At first they didn't want to replace it but I talked them into swapping it out:blast: But seriously I would buy a good one. I ordered a pertronix cap and haven't had bit of trouble in almost 2 years. Clint
Yeah Jeff it's just a plain old point distributor, carbon tracking is what the old guys called it when the spark was going somewhere it was'nt supposed to go. It would leave a deposit where it arced making it more likely to arc along the same path again. Now for my question, what do you mean by grounding the spark plug wire. Dave Berry
Sorry Dave, after re-reading my other post, it didn't make sense to me either! I meant pull the coil wire off the dist cap and ground it on a intake manifold bolt or something. REMOVE your hands from the wire! Have someone ELSE briefly crank the engine over, for less than 5 seconds. Only long enough to notice the color of the spark and the intensity of it. Especially with the MSD, it should be FAT and BLUE. Not yellow/white and skinny. I'm sorry, I kinda too tired to explain the proper procedure for checking a coil. This isn't it, but it sure will give you a quick and simple way to check for a bad coil, or at least problems BEFORE the distributor. Any good repair manual, or maybe someone else could explain to you here off the top of their head how to check a coil with a voltmeter. Or if you want, I'll give it a shot. What'd ya think of the Taylor wires?:Brow:
Oh yeah, the cap. I found NAPA/Eklin brand (its black, thick, with brass terminals, their best one!) to be a REALLY GOOD choice. Don't even buy the wafer thin caps with alum. terminals! Don't let any dirt/foriegn particles get inside the cap, ESPECIALLY FINGERPRINTS!! Your hands have oil in them. This actually encourages arcing!! Water is another bad thing. Throw the points away, also. Those are soo old school! ou: Time for Dave, IgnitionMan to build you one of his HOT distributors. Have you heard about or looked into this possibility??
Taylor Spiro Pros is whats on the car now, and I'm soo old school myself. Got a couple of HEIs but don't like the looks. Maybe Petronix, but is that compatable with the MSD? Wonder if some dielectric grease would stop the voltage bleed? Oh yeah the arc jumping to the negetive terminal from the center tower is plenty fat and blue. Dave Berry
I used Mallory's Unilite points conversion so I could retain the stock distributor. Havn't had a problem. I use MSD6AL and Blaster II to fire that. Havn't had a problem with those either. The coil was a little fatter than the stocker, so it was a little hard to put in the clamp, but it fits. I also had the typical "run on" when I first hooked up the 6AL box. Mallory Unilite Kit- about $99
