Hello all, I'm needing some help. I'm at my wits end with this damn h.e.I.
I'm running a carb'd 305,
accel vac advance dizzy, Borg warner coil and ignition module, as well as pickup Coil.
The way I have it setup is battery + to dip switch inside, switch to 20A fuse, and fuse to batt terminal of dizzy cap. No tach, other 3 wires securely plugged.
Ground strap in the coil is brand new and secure, cap is brand new, wires and plugs are brand new.

The car will fire up and run like a champ for x amount of time, usually a couple hours. Come back next day, and no spark. Replace coil and module and..wallah. it works. Repeat.. I've been through 10 each in two months now.

I have a 4 gauge strap going from block to firewall, am getting 13 volts at the cap.

Thought it might by my alt.. but its drawing 14.5v while running and testing at orileys and advance auto says its good..
All my wires going from batt to switch etc are new and intact with good connections, and I'm using arctic silver thermal compound on the module.

Would anyone have ANY idea why I keep blowing coil after coil after coil? While it does run, it runs like a mad ape with ZERO issues. It never just randomly dies, as long as it running, it'll stay running.

Please, anyone? I love this p.o.s., but this dizzy has me pulling my dreads out and wanting to drop a point type dizzy in.

 

i had a buddy who used to have a similar problem. my opinion of his issue was a painted distributer hold down clamp. he put a cheap chrome one on and never had another issue. i'm no expert, but i believe the distributer needs a good ground. you may be getting a ground by barely touching the intake, or from the oilpump driveshaft. the best ground of course would be from the hold down clamp, through the bolt into the intake, etc.
what kind of shape is the little wire harness from the module to the coil?
how many pin is your module?

 

The clamp isn't painted, and the area on the intake is sanded of all paint as well. Its a 4 pin module, and the harness is a Canadian one. Two wires off the module, with one coming from the condenser (also new), and then all 3 plug into the cap. Ive tried Bosch parts, accel parts, master crap parts, gm parts..etc

 

Sounds like you're working on the wrong thing. Just because you replace something and the system starts working, doesn't necessarily mean the part you changed was bad.

More likely all that is just coincidence, and the switch is intermittent. Can't imagine using a DIP switch for ignition, regardless; WAY too little current-carrying capacity.

Why are you doing all that extra switch fuse whatever in the first place? What's wrong with the ignition switch and the pink wire, like the car came? If something is wrong with that, why not just repair it properly and make it work like it used to?

 

No, when it does this, the coil is indeed fried. Sometimes the module is as well, but mostly the coil. I'm aware the coil is the effect, not the cause, I'm trying to find the cause.

The car was $600 when I got it. Half the harness was shot and was ripped out when I removed the computer and the engine bay harness for the computer. The way I described is how I've ran all my demo derby cars with no problem (fords)

 

Did you ever find what was causing this problem?

 

Negative, I just dropped in a point type dizzy. No problems since.

 

That is kinda demoralizing, I was hoping it was a "yeah it was simple". I just had a icm go out and ordered a complete summit hei kit. I'm hoping that I have good luck and every thing works for a while! I just wonder what causes this.

 

i've had issues with my hei system before. my advice? don't take a step backward with a more primitive distributor.
ask people like sofa whats wrong, in this case. for the hei system the problem was that switch