thegroundlevel

UPDATE! Decided to pull the trigger on a 123Ignition BlueTooth Distributor to resolve what seemed to be dizzy troubles. WELP! All to no avail. Wired everything up as such [ATTACHED]. The bluetooth AP on my phone registers the distributor as being ON (the blue status LED is also ON in the unit), clocked my rotor tang to the proper 11:25 position before installing the dizz, rotated the 123 rotor to point at the Cyl. 1 position on my cap, and CRANK! = NOTHING at the spark plugs. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?!

Yeah, I also did a resistance test on the magnetic pick-up wires off the distributor, and got a 709 ohm read-out, which I would note as being in the "approximately 725 ohm" category Now, my next logical move here seems to be trying a reman distributor or better and seeing if it is in-fact a faulty distributor somewhere. Everything else is hooked up properly, and my battery read at exactly 12V on the multimeter as well (obviously been some drain w. all my crank attempts, but 12v should be enough to start the car, no?) Guess it wouldnt hurt to throw it on a trickle charger for now?? Brand new Optima Red!! Ugh. Here's a couple more pics showing how I have everything hooked up, for those confused by my doodle: (coil hook-up, engine bay feat. magnetic hookup, and back of switch panel feat. small red MSD & start button)

Well this IS how I have everything hooked up, sooo...

I don't have those wires from my stock system in place anymore. That's where I'm getting lost here... Simply running off the switch panel for everything. There is no accessory vs. power ON engagement, like with a keyed ignition. This is probably why the IGNITION 12v is the first, primary position of the switch panel next to the START button. The rest (only other one wired at the moment being FUEL) are acc buttons. Now, if I wire the coil to the MSD power wire, will that initiate the firing of the coil upon START?? Still confused about how / what my BW and BL wires would be in my current set-up. But I think I'm getting it! (also, NewZed, your help thus far has been monumental for me - thank you!!) [ATTACHED] The lights on my panel stay lit, so I would imagine the power is not cutting during turn-over.

Ok yeah! The thin red wire goes to my "ignition pwr" toggle on my rocker panel. So I turn that on, and the power from the heavier red wire turns on the 6AL box via the battery positive terminal (indicated by blinking on the box). So, given what you're saying! That's probably what I'm missing. I should be running a wire from the thin red MSD wire to a ballast resistor and then to the coil positive?? If so, that might be the ticket!!

Well, everything IS disconnected as far as anything that was ever on the car. I'm entirely rewiring the car. Mostly everything running off toggle switches. That being said, this is how I have everything set-up right now. What is it that I'm leaving out?? Should there be an independent power line + ballast resistor before the coil unrelated to the MSD harness?? Otherwise, everything as far as MSD's manual is concerned has the set-up looking complete. SO confused!

Ok, so referring to this diagram, I seem tobe bypassing the ballast block before the coil there. I had assumed that power ON with the 6AL would be delivering power to the coil. Should I be running another connection at the coil posts to recrify this?? I’m wiring entirely from scratch here. I just tested the magnetic advance signal with ignition ON by shorting the green and violet wires on the MSD (the ones that would otherwise be connected to my dizzy), and spark comes from the coil when I short them. thanks!!

So I’ve been rebuilding my ’76 280z for the past few years, and I’m finally onto the carb conversion / ignition stage of the project. I’ve removed all EFI harnesses from the car and installed a QuickCar rocker panel to control everything on switches. I also installed an MSD Digital 6AL and Blaster 2 Coil. Carbs are Triple Weber 40 DCOE. I’m having issues getting the car to fire. As of right now, I have ignition power, fuel pump power, starter engagement, and engine cranking. But there seems to be no spark in the cylinders. There IS gas delivery though. This is where I need help… I have read mixed reviews on how to have the MSD set-up. Orange and Black wires are going to my coil. That’s the obvious one. Then, I have tried both the Magnetic Advance option [hooked up the green and red wires coming out of my electronic 280z dizzy to the green and violet harness from the MSD (also, there’s a third brown wire coming out of the stock dizzy too… where does that go?)], as well as without, functioning off of the white wire from the 6AL going to the positive post on my coil. I have also tested for spark from the coil going to the distributor by removing the coil-to-dizzy wire and grounding the white MSD wire to arc a current. That works when my ignition is switched on, without cranking. Also had my buddy check a spark plug WHILE cranking, and he said the plug had no spark... So what am I missing? Everything given my knowledge of basic wiring saw this as being pretty straight-forward, but right now I am totally at a loss. Expecting to hear that I’m overlooking something simple / stupid in my haste to get this car started, but I really can’t figure this out! I’ve attached a few pictures to situate you guys a little better: