Snowed in on MLK day, Here is my Project of the Day...

[Kemo]

Today is super cold here in Austin, the roads are a bit icey and I have MLK day off from work. In any event, I didnt want to get out in the weather so I figured I would try to knock out a few domestic things while Im confined to the house. Not too long ago, I had purchased an MSD High Vibration coil from EBay part #8222. Seems the Nascar guys use this coil and toss them out all the time. This cost me 30 dollars shipped so I was happy about that purchase. Since im always requesting project pics, I figured I would post some of my own. here we go...

The first thing I did was remove the stock coil and take note of which wire was attatched to the negative. in my case it was the Brown/White wire to the negative while the White wire went to the positive terminal. I figured this out by looking at the stock coil and identifying the 'negative' symbol next to the post.

Since the MSD Coil is black like the factory piece, I removed the sticker from the unit and cleaned off the goo with a rag and brake cleaner. I was able to re-use the MSD Sticker on my Kegerator which added a racy look to it. I also noticed that the bottom of the MSD coil had some kind of clear bottom, probably some kind of polymer. I had to tape that off and paint black. I used Satin black enamel and only painted the very bottom.




The next thing I noticed was that the coil cap from the stock unit would not fit over the MSD unit. I had to get creative with the Dremel tool to get the cap to fit flush. I had to 'waller-out' the inner part of the cap to get the cap over the MSD tip.



Fortunately, the MSD coil and the stock coil are about the same diameter. I was happy when the base of the cap fit flush at the top




I pushed the wire that goes from the distributor cap to the coil down into the coil tip. For some reason it didnt 'click' in place and seemed to me that the wire came out of the tip too easy. I had to figure out how to tighten things up a bit. I used a flathead screwdriver to remove a screw down in the MSD tip. For some reason, my distributor wire metal assembly was too long to allow the wire to click in place. I took the wire itself and ground it down a bit and did the same to the screw head until i was able to get the wire assembly to seat itself in the circular casing.



once i was satisfied with the way it all fit together, I cinched down the coil bracket to the new unit and then put it all back on the car. The MSD unit had both the positive and the negative terminals clearly marked and it fit in the engine bay no problem. Aside from the shiney casing and the extra length, it looks basically stock and I am very happy with the astetics of the coil.





Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who might be considering replacing their coil. I wasnt able to test drive the car but it started up and ran in the garage. when the weather clears, Ill check to see if it helps the choppy idle. I still have my stock one just incase this one turns out to be a dud. For 30 bucks I just had to see if MSD could do better than my 29yr old stock coil.

[Gene Wilkes]

Nice write-up Kemo! Keep'em coming!