ok, again the latest.

swapped the fire core wires out to some stock type wires, (had the label "suppression"), on them.

if you remember, in order to have the engine rev limit at 6100, i have to set the limiter to 7100. so i set it back down to 6100 in case this made a significant difference.

took the car out and it got up to about 5700 or so, but was missing so badly it couldn't continue beyond that.

put the fire core wires back in, and it hard limited at about 5000. huge difference in behavior.

so i think it is pretty conclusive. only 2 things have made a difference since i started this, (3 if you count eliminating the MSD box entirely and putting in a dual point): resistor plugs and stock type wires.

it seems pretty obvious to me now that the issue involves the amount of RF under the hood, and the box is extremely sensitive to it. (yes, i know, many people have pointed that out, but i had to get there step by step). i don't know why my situation is so different than so many others, but for some as yet unknown reason, it is. everything is basically stock under the hood aside from the ignition system.

next step; rig a harness so i can temporarily relocate the box to the passenger compartment, and see what that does. if for some reason that doesn't take care of it, then i'm going to start looking at getting a dual point distributor in there.