Car died halfway to the gas station. I had finished two days of shakedown, but once again the heat got to the "M" in normal (I need a better heat gauge) and had to have it towed back to my house for another tear down. I got impatient waiting for the new TFI module to show up, and was optimistic that my issues were air in the cooling system. It was not.
While I have a new motorcraft TFI sitting in a box now (it came today, ironically), I just ordered this relocation kit, hopefully to reduce the heat soak that's killing these TFI's. The engine is going to get very hot running up and down the streets, and at least this way I can hot-swap TFI's if it dies.
I'm not sure what is causing all that heat in your motor, did you check that the thermostat is not backwards ? I know it sounds stupid but it's pretty easy to screw up?
I'm confident that's not the case, because I didn't remove it when I pulled the lower intake, been the same thermostat for 10 years, and I know it works, I did a one hour run down check of the car, and watching with the lisle funnel I could see it open and close through the rising / dropping coolant volume. It is possible I need to move to a lower temperature thermostat, I'm still running the stock one, mostly because I do want the car at the appropriate operating temperature. The engine didn't feel all that hot, but the distributor felt the hottest of all the parts with the finger touch test. There's a lot of aluminum in there now to aid cooling, so nothing felt all that hot, i'm starting to look at aftermarket gauges now to make sure I have a better view of the engine vitals.
So I think I may have *fingers crossed* solved my stalling problem. Got a new motorcradft TFI module, and I picked up the McCully Racing Motors relocation kit. Moved the TFI module and a big-ass heat sink over to the passenger fender, where it can suck up some fresh air. I took the car out for a shakedown drive today, and got the temperature almost to the "M" in normal. Not sure what water temperature that was, but the car was rock solid.
Here's some pics. The basic idea is that 3 wires extend from the distributor to the fenderwell to the module, and gets it off the heat-soak that is the distributor.