&*^%#!!! Made it to the track tonight. Beautiful weather, very small crowd. I was ready to go.
So I do a nice little burn out, stage and go. Hook up pretty good, left the LS1 Z28 in my rear view mirror. Anyways, go to shift into second, and miss or so I think. Try again, no luck, but the lovely sound of grinding was there. Finally muscled it in and went. Try to shift into third, and the same grinding noise.
Needless to say, I stopped trying, and watched as the Z flew past me, and I roll across the line at 16.14 @61.6mph. So something is wrong with the clutch or tranny obvously, but heck maybe if I could at least get it into fourth I could drive home like that-wouldn't have even worried about sixth.

But it doesn't end there. I turn the car off to inspect the problem. Go to start it and it takes a good 10 seconds. Of course, it dies on me. Try again and no start! Injectors were spraying, when I checked for spark, there was nothing. Freakin beautiful.

I don't know what it could be. My ignition: MSD coil.....6 months, gnition module....4 days, wires....1 month-like new, plugs......1 month minus three of them which are 6 months, MSD-6A.....2 years old.
My guess would be the distributor itself or maybe the MSD box went bad. I can't really think of anything else. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

On a semi descent note, my 330' mark was 5.849 seconds, which is not bad considering the time it took me to shift into second. I'm pretty confident it would have been much better had I not had to lolly gag with the shift. In comparison to previous trips to the track, that 330' has lead me to a 13.5 with the old intake. I think the rpm airgap really helped top end, in which I sacrificed some lowend, but no biggy, but in realations to the time would have yeilded quicker ones.

I really thought I'd be in the 12's tonight on the last wednesday the track is open this year, but instead, never reach 70mph.

 

That sucks man, similar to my problems, in that I got my motor running good, but tranny won't hold 3rd gear with any kind of throttle, was able to pull a 14.7s with only 1st and 2nd. Gonna have to wait till next year to see high 13's.

 

Small cap HEI?

Those things are always suspect!

Do you have any of the known good old stuff to swap back in to try?

 

Just the ignition module, which was testing bad 2 out of 3 tests, but at least the ignition was firing with it in. I also have a stock coil I can throw in there. But that is about it.
I'm actually starting to wonder if some of the knocks and misses I was getting were actually signs of the ignition going out. They only started after the intake was installed, in which case maybe the distributor got messed up some how some way. I don't know. The knocks and backfires were probably a combo of the adapter plate and ignition. Who knows.

I need some help though.....since I can't drive it, I was wondering if somebody would be willing to help me push it of a cliff!

 

i will help you push yours off a cliff...but you have to help me push mine in a river...lol. anyway when i fried my msd6a, i took it to a local speed shop so he could send it off to have it fixed. he then proceeded to toss it in a box with about 30 other msd boxes! so i asked him about the longetivity of them and he replied,"a few years." mine is 4 years old. not saying that the mans word is gospel, take it for what you want. but its worth checking it out cause my car wouldnt run when it went bad. what would it take to switch it back to stock configuration, maybe 5-15 minutes to switch it back, depending on how you have it hooked up. i dont have the msd wiring harness, however i put male/female ends on all the wires for easy connection/disconnection. just for this purpose actually! sorry bout your poor outing...man that f-ing blows!

 

Found the problem.....kinda.....

The coil was fried. However, when I got the car started w/ the new coil, the freakin volts were reading in the red around 18v. So i'm thinking there's a bad diode in the alternator, and that fried my coil. Now the question is what else did it possibly fry..... Time for more checks I guess...

 

Voltage regulator in the alternator could be toast. That would cause it to push 18 volts. Or the stock guage isn't working correctly. I know my doesn't.

 

my gauge typicaly read 16-18 volts, but it is a confirmed 14.4 according to the hadny DVOM.

 

My gauge is correct, or at least representable. In the on position, it reads right around 12 volts, turn the lights on and it goes down slightly. At idle, it shows around 13v or so, and once it's past 1,100rpm it hits full charge at 14.5v. Well, at least before it started acting up.
I am pretty sure my alternator is just toast, and it explains why my 6 month old MSD blaster coil burned out.