MSD Wiring

Hey guys, I understand how to wire the MSD box, but my question is are you running your thick power and ground leads directly to the battery per the instructions? I don't like this idea, just looking for ways around this. Why does the box need power when the switch is off? This doesn't cause a drain?

Also, for the secondary power lead, I'm assuming you are running this to the 12V side of the ballast resistor, any trick ways to run this without hacking my harness (new engine harness). I don't particularly like wiring accessories to the 12V side of the ballast either because I burned it up once before.

And lastly, any ideas on bypassing the ballast resistor without hacking the harness?

I have some ideas but just looking for some more.

Got any other power points on your car that is supplied by a wire the size of your MSD power wire?

I don't think so? MSD pulls a lot of power at hi rpm, it needs to be run directly to the battery.

My battery has the 8mm hex head screw terminals on the side. I wired my MSD directly to these terminals.

Mine is hid inside the car. I ran a 10 gauge wire from the MSD to the battery post on the starter relay.

Oh and when I wired mine up the instructions said NOT to use a ballast resistor. I didn't.

There's some sort of relay inside the box. The small red wire, when energized,, closes the relay and connects the box to the big wire. So the box is really not energized when the car is turned off, or for that matter any time you don't have sufficient voltage on the small red wire.

The Capacitive Discharge ignition does not use a ballast resistor. Leaving the ballast resistor in the feed for the small red wire may cause the relay to malfunction. Get rid of it.

R.

i run mine from the starter relay as well...

As for the ballast resistor, what I do is make a wire that bridges the wiring connectors. That way the BR is bypassed, I don't have to hack the harness, and I can return to stock if I ever want to in the future.

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As for the ballast resistor, what I do is make a wire that bridges the wiring connectors. That way the BR is bypassed, I don't have to hack the harness, and I can return to stock if I ever want to in the future.

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This is what I was thinking.

The relay in the box makes me feel better about this/makes sense.