where’s the ballast resistor?

Hey Jim---I'm far, far, far from giving up. I love my boat. (although a '66 mustang is tempting--year of birth for me and my wife). The '84 was running pretty well at the end of last season (November). There were a couple of things I had noticed then that I wanted to deal with. But we had a pretty wet winter and I let it sit until March. I'm sure that helped deteriorate the electronics and the gaskets. If everything works out with getting the lake house, this won't be a problem. I can take the SN out for a spin in January with little effort.

But, you make it sound like a leak in the throtle body to intake gasket or the intake to head gasket will cause some sever problems. Should I really address this before anymore sking or cocktail cruises? The exhaust leak was the next project. What do you think?    

Well, I might as well join...

I use a Pertonix igniter to trigger an MSD and can comment, 66....

An igniter alone is a drop-in replacement for the breaker plate...doesn't affect the weights nor springs..it doesn't boost performance..unless the points were crap to start with...it simply runs factory fresh, always starts, no stumble or skip or degradation of performance with time...

However, it sees full coil current, runs fairly hot and can fail without resolve, unless you keep the breaker plate in the glovebox (recommended).

I ran the pertronix for 2 years before adding the MSD.

The difference with the MSD is truly amazing..

First start of the year on a 8-month cold, fogged engine and having it settle out without farting and pumping the throttle...

In fact, when i first energize the key for spring startup, the engine typically turns 1/4 revolution as it fires the fogging oil & residual mix.

Holeshot was drasically improved, it leaps out of the hole, gained 150 rpm and 2 mph vs igniter alone.

One time my bowl floats clogged open when my fuel pump began shreading the check-valve gaskets (took a long time to diagnose and find) and was dumping fuel out the verturies without control..I could still start it and still drive back to the dock to fix, no tow..

You can gap the plugs 70 to 80 thousanths for our compression ratios...

The msd sends multiple, 500v pulses to the primary, imagine the result...fooling around, I've visibly witnessed the spark jump a 2.5 " gap, perhaps larger, with a loud snap.

With good carburation, the perfomance is all you could ask for..
People comment my boat starts and responds to the throttle like an MFI.

I'd highly recommend a long-snout coil, like the MDS blaster 3 coil, because I witnessed the spark cheat around the std size coil, along its top, to its primary ground, and don't want that going on under the hood. The long snout coil cured that and keeps all the sparks where they should be... in the cap and the wires.

My pertronix should last forever now that its seeing so little current.

Polyhead - you can still trigger an MSD with your points..if you like...they may wear the rub block, but won't arc and the contacts should stay nice because the input impedance on the MSD is orders of magnetude higher than a coil; you may still have moisture issues, but you can still keep some 'old school' charm.

I recommend this if your a performance freak or want to really enjoy your boat..You'll loose all desire to dream of MFI.

The Marine model is more money, but supposibly is potted better (for salt) and internally inhibits the single spark sent to the plug closest to the rotor when you turn the key to ON and the system enrgizes..thus is USCG approved. I run the basic 6A model. your call.

Make sure you use good quality marine wires, too. The MSD warns against spiral core wires.

I'll post a pix tonight if you like, you may like how I aranged the electrics...

BTW, I've seen a friend's boat run a few seasons with a pertronix igniter, while the coil had too little resistance... and the ballast wire/resistor was removed when it should have remained.

The igniter failed suddenly, occasionally would start after it cooled down, then die like you turned the key off above 1500 rpm.
Suspiciously, since the igniter was installed, the dash Voltmeter would bob with every cyllinder pulse at idle; it was yanking too much current (thus too hot) for its electronics and was loading down the ignition wire and the whole dash.

I think 1.5 ohm primary is the mark... if the coil is significantly less, consider the ballast resistor or get a new coil, and of couse understand the instruction sheet thoroughly. hope this helps

Heres what I came up with,

This is a hinged piece of lexan that is easy to drill and tap and place the components.

Two Stanley hinges were modified to fit under two rear intake bolts, with a sturdy ground feed eye on one; remove these two bolts and the whole thing can get pulled away, else its easy to flip up for full access to the tranny.

Of course the MSD is there, battery switch and starter relay, circuit breaker, a ground block and hot term strip to feed the alternater, choke, aux relay and igniter(pertronix)

The aux relay (on the left)to feed the choke and alternater, so the dash and ignition are not loaded down and the alt sees truer battery voltage. The MSD gets a battery feed and an is activated by the ignition.

Then a wire loom makes it all look purty...

Hope it helps,

Use stranded tinned copper wire of the appropriate gauge ( I use #16 for my ignition coil wire) and high quality crimp-on terminals. (A terminal crimp tool can be purchased at Radio Shack for three or four dollars.) Tinned wire is silver in color. It is available at West Marine and at most marine stores. Auto parts houses usually do not carry tinned wire in my experience. I suspect you should reset your timing.

Everyone's experience with timing will be different. With my engine setup I have found that I seemingly get best performance with 18 Deg initial timing and 38 Deg total advance. With any less initial timing I get a bog when I hit full throttle from a stand-still. If anyone else has better results at different setting I would like to hear from them.

I am glad you fixed the leaks. Did your idle smooth out?

Ok, so I read the book and it said the compression should be checked at normal operating temperature but I check it at ambient temperature. I'll warm it up later this week and check the compression again (and change the spark plugs on the other side). The old plugs didn't look bad any bad other than maybe running a little lean from the air leak.