Hello All!! Been a long while since I've spent any time here. It's good to see that there are a lot of familiar names still around.

I have spent the last couple months putting together a 1971 Dodge D100 for a very good friend. Long story short, EVERYTHING under the hood is NEW. One of these "new" items is an electronic ignition conversion kit from Mancini's. I could not get the engine to fire up with the "orange" box that came with the kit. After much hair loss I stuck an old box I had laying around on and got the engine started. I broke the camshaft in 20 min. @ 2000 etc.. Started the truck several times that day with no issues. Next day, nothing, back to square one. Went and bought a module from Oreilly's, 4 pin, still nothing. Here's what I've done or checked:

1.) There is 12V from IGN 1 "run" to the ballast resistor. Blue elec ign wire connected here and getting 12V.

2.) There is 12V from IGN 2 "start" to the other side of the ballast resistor which is feeding 12V to the positive side of the coil is start position.

3.) The control box is grounded well. Ground wire from Neg side of battery to hold down bolt on control box. This latest box is unpainted. The previous ones I scraped the paint off for good ground.

Question: Is there suppose to be voltage on the negative side of the coil during the "start" or "run" position of the ignition switch? I have a momentary several millisecond blip of voltage when ign switch is very first turned "on" and when turned "off", but no other time during the starting process.

I am out of ideas and knowledge on electronic ignition. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
Russell

Unplug the bulkhead connectors and check for burned or badly corroded terminals. Make sure that the connectors are plugged in good and tight.

Hello Pentastar440, and thank you. I have done that multiple times. New ignition switch. Bought another complete wiring harness, bumper to bumper, and went over it with a fine tooth comb before I installed it. All bulkhead connections were cleaned thoroughly. I have rechecked since several times also.

You might pull the yellow "ign" wire off of the starter relay on the inner fender to termporarily disable the starter just for these tests. Take off any and all wires from the coil negative primary terminal and with the ign sw on (ign1) w a jumper wire ground this coil male neg pri terminal to ground repeatedly like Morse Code & see if the dist to coil secondary wire held 1/4" from the valve cover sparks then have a helper turn the ign sw to "start" (ign2) & hold it there & you repeat & see if it sparks. If it sparks on one or both tests then the ECU and the coil are good (though they both have been known to act up when hot). If not one of them is bad and or they are not getting fire (either in "run" or "start" and I would make sure the ECU is cleaned/scraped on the bottom by one of the mounting bolts even though it is unpainted just to be sure). If you have a spare dist plug it in & spin it by hand w the ign sw "on" and "start" & see if it triggers a spark from the coil secondary wire 1/4" from ground. The "point" of the ECU pentastar connector must get fire in "on" and in "start". Check the reluctor gap on your current dist & maybe reduce it to .005" at the tightest point which will be somewhere in the travel range of the vac adv (got a vac pump/Mityvac handy?). But with almost everything being new I'd think as you surmised a part time open but do check the reluctor gap.

Hello RapidRobert and thank you for your detailed info and time. I have Church and work tomorrow. Will most likely be Monday or Tuesday morning before I can run your suggested tests. I will definitely post back with the results.
Russell

I'm toward to pick up coil into dist... those pieces are coming BAAAAD QUALITY latelly

Thanks to those that posted suggestions! I went through RapidRobert's series of tests and never could get spark from the coil secondary wire to ground. The pickup coil tested bad also, but in this very poor quality electronic ignition conversion kit that Mancini markets, the pickup coil is riveted/bradded to it's mounting plate and is not replaceable without drilling it out. Shouldn't have to go drilling on something brand new to replace parts and make it work. The kit will go back to them. My friend that I am putting this truck together for ordered a "reman" factory dual point distributor from O'reilly's today for $43. We are running out of time to have this truck finished and road tested for his stepson by Christmas, and I have long since run out of patience with this ignition fiasco.

Thanks again to those who offered input!!

doesn't need to replace the riveted piece. Replace the complete plate asembly. Piece of cake... two phillips screws at sides of the dist housing. PROBABLY will need to loose the vacuum to ( two screws more ). Needs to extract the reluctor though!

I mean If we are talking about like the Mopar piece

replacement parts comes with the plate.

thanks GOD I saved my old dist with a PERFECT pick up coil ( I just god damaged the shaft ). with your experience, will replace mine. I got MP dist

Hello NachoRT74,
I didn't notice any screws in the side of the distributor housing, but I wasn't looking for them. I have three factory low deck big block electronic distributors. I just pulled a good pickup coil out of one of them and was going to put in the Mancini distributor. The pickup coil in mine you just remove a screw on one end of the pickup coil and there is a hole that drops over a pin on the other end. Plate removal is not necessary. I did not know there was another kind until I ran into this one and you said you have to replace the plate assy. I guess you learn something new every day. Thanks again for your input!
Anyway the point distributor is in and the truck is back to running. It goes to the exhaust shop in the morning for it's maiden voyage! Finally!

well older assemblies used two screws, the one what fixes the coil bracket and the oen to adjust the gap... newer replacement parts are riveted.

replace the rivet and install a screw is a piece of cake, since the screw will make its own thread on the plate. I made it once when I got a replacement part and I didn't want to deal with the plate removing, so removed the coil from the replacement riveted part simply prying it out from the plate and screwed into the old plate.

did you noticed if your car attenmpt to start up when releasing the key ?

Yes, I noticed that every once in a while if I went from the "start" position past "run" back to "off" it acted like it fired one cylinder and would puff one time.
RE

yes, a backfiring... same as me right now.

All the times I haven't been able to fire up the engine cranking when I quick release the key to OFF I get backfiring.

when I can't fire up the engine while cranking after get that backfire sometimes I have made to start the engine right away OR SOMETIMES when releasing the key to run in an specific moment...

and IS NOT a wiring or power deal, I'm sure about that.

Engine temp affects that too... with hot engine but off for some period is harder to start up.

I can feel also quite often RPM variations while keeping gas pedal steady at certain speed

just posting about my experience... got it better with the pick up coil replacement, but still not completelly satisfied... well is an used unit that I know simply was in good conditions.

tested the unit coming with the MP dist and had continuity sometime yes sometime not, so probably I was getting problems there.

The Mancini conversion is made in China.Maybe you got a bum box.