I’ve got the electronic ignition I described a couple posts back partially installed and running now. Right now it’s running triggered off of the points, as I didn’t have any luck getting the distributor to fit—I really think it’s slightly bent or something. Everything is the same size as my old one, but it gets stuck before it fully drops down, even with the oil pump driveshaft completely out. I’ll have to find another one.

The wiring is done with 14 gauge wire (though one of the distributor pickup wires is 16 gauge), with bullet connectors going to the Mopar box and the standard quick disconnect terminals to the relay and other components. The relay provides 12V power to the ignition box when the ignition switch is in the on and start positions. It has a 20A glass fuse with 12V pulled from the always hot side of the starter solenoid, with the trigger from the solenoid’s “I” terminal.

Right now, the points distributor’s ground wire to the solenoid is connected to one of the box’s pickup wires, and the other is left disconnected. I narrowed the points gap to about 0.020”. I had tried something smaller, but couldn’t get it to run. It turns out that I had a grounding issue with my starter solenoid, so the smaller gap could still work and save a little wear. I had to rotate the distributor a bit to get it to start, since the ignition box fires when the points close rather than when they open. Once running, I adjusted the timing to around 10 degrees BTDC. The setup for the points triggering is from Go Fast for Less.

In all honesty, I haven’t noticed a major difference with this setup, but I’ve hardly driven it like this. It’s basically just been around the block. I need to get some better fitting terminals in a couple places before I drive it too far, and I also started on the 2 barrel swap, so this exact setup won’t be driven more than it has. Plug gaps are at 0.040”, which is only a little bigger than I had them before. My points were also brand new from Motorcraft. It probably isn’t trying to pull more current than what the points could handle at this point.