Duraspark woes in a '85 GT, need help bad.

[Ranchero5.0]

It's eating boxes. Been returning a friends ex racer '85 GT into a street car. He bought it as a roller with the mechanicals scattered and the wiring hacked dang near everywhere. To repair the wiring I swiped a duraspark harness out of a ex U haul F350 and spliced it in remembering the old addage 'run is red or it'll soon be dead' for the run and start wires (also followed the '85 schematics to be sure). Using a generic box and distributor with a EEC coil caused the resister wire in the harness to smoke when the car fired up. Ended up removing the resistor wire segment thinking it wasn't needed with the EEC coil and tonight smoked the box after it had been running for about thirty minutes. I'm wondering if I should have found a duraspark coil and used the resister wire setup. I removed everything on my old '83 capri with a custom harness, but had a jacobs box between the duraspark and the coil and it worked fine. Any suggestions are welcome...

Jamie

 

[Ranchero5.0]

TTT... guess it's not about gears or exhaust so guys are clueless...

Jamie

 

[hllon4whls]

Its been so long since I did this. The run line does have a resistor in it, but I wired in my 86 to the start only line. It ran and still runs to this day and that was over 5 years ago.

 

[Jason5.0]

my honest suggestion, buy a msd 6a box, i got mine used off a race car for $100, best $100 i ever spent after dealing with the durajunk boxes, i went through 3 of them in a day trying to bet er running and then decided ok its time to try a better route, used msd's wiring diagrams and she fired right up and rang strong since (till i blew the motor last week) but never the less the msd is the way to go imo

 

[stang8urimport]

Hopefully this will help you if you need it.

 

[Ranchero5.0]

Poop, that's one of the diagrams I have, followed it to the T and it smoked the resister wire in the run position engine running or not. Thinking the box was fried from the get go or the coil should of had more resistance on the primary side even though I usually only see 1-2ohms there.

The car isn't mine, I'm just unfugging the wiring. Previous own hacked it all out and ran a painless wiring system for the motor. Already recommended the MSD, but I thought I had it right the first time, then the second time, and now on the third time.... Nutz

Jamie