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The brown bypass wire puts out a full 13 volts when turning the key to start which is perfect. The blue 'run' wire also puts out 13 volts when the key is in run, also perfect. Now, this is with the wires not jumpered together or linked together through the ballast! Now, if i hook them to the ballast like its supposed to be, OR, just jumper them together, the voltage when in start drops to 10.5, a whole 2.5 volts less. So, if i jumper them together to run the HEI, it will still drop to 10.5. Everything im reading says its got to have at least 12 all the time..Like i said, separated, the blue 'run' wire and the brown bypass 'start' wire put out 13 volts, which indicates no voltage drop through the bulkhead, BUT, jumper them together, OR, hook them to the ballast as they are supposed to be and the 'start' voltage drops to 10.5. Makes no damn sense. Why linking the 2 sides together causes this is unexplainable. Thoughts?

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showing 13V on either of the female ballast connectors dangling in the air does not show voltage drop since there is no load. If there is at least 1 micro strand of wire from batt to dangling connector(s) you would still show 13 Volts (pressure). As soon as there's a load and current starts to flow then there is a voltage drop cuz one strand of wire cannot handle the amount of amperage that a given device will draw so checking the dangling ends in run and in start only shows basic continuity is in place (13V) but not if there is adequate continuity for alot of amperage which is why your original jumping did let it start. Connecting the (2) female connectors to the ballast ends will show a drop (10.5) in crank cuz the current to the brown wire end is being reduced as it moves across the ballast to the blue wire side (& current drawing devices are on/out from the blue wire side). Short version: Tie the blue/brown wires together & 10.5 will be enough to fire the HEI (trust me). Now if you are saying that the dangling blue and brown wires each have 13V respectively but you connect the female ends to each other with a jumper with alligator clips (no ballast/nothing else in the picture) & then it has 10.5 (now is that run or crank or both) then yes that does not make sense as I dont see any added load but there has to be for it to be dropping from 13 to 10.5 so I am missing something. What I would do is with them jumpered together with your meter probes on the batt neg/pos posts see (1) what you have in "run" and (2) in "crank" and keep the neg probe on batt neg post & (3) connect positive probe to your blue/brown jumper connection & see what you have in (4) "run" and (5) in "crank". Holler back when you can