No Start - Mallory Hyfire 6al

Vehicle is ‘87 ram with a stroked 340. Can’t get it to fire. I have a Mallory Hyfire ignition box and matching Mallory unilite distributor.
At the end of last year I Tried to start it and the battery was dead (It had been running fine the last time I drove it). Boosted the battery but it wouldn’t start. Tried 2nd battery and same thing. It was getting some spark because it was on the verge of starting but just not quite enough. I left it for the winter and now I’m trying again.
Same condition. I tried the manual troubleshooting and followed the instruction to check to make sure the box was working, basically disconnect one wire and ground it. Should get a spark which I did, but is seemed very faint. Nowhere near as strong as get from the Mopar OEM box when I hold the coil wire to metal to check for spark.
Called tech support, they said it was the optical sensor on the distributor. I just swapped that and still getting the exact same condition. Close to starting but just not enough.
When I pull the coil wire and crank the engine I can’t see the spark jump.
Any suggestions?

I'd hook a wire to the Neg of the coil and with the coil lead set off of the block, turn the ignition on and tap that wire to the block to test the coil.

I have an update, I swapped spark plugs and got the engine to start but it stumbles the minute I apply throttle and won’t rev above 1500 rpm. I confirmed I’m getting spark at all 8 cylinders because the header tubes got warm. It really feels like a spark issue. Like it’s not getting a good combustion. I don’t have any noticeable vacuum leaks.
Suggestions?

Just a few ideas.....Do you have another distributor and/or coil (check compatibility) you could adapt & try? I recall hearing that the Uni-lite distributors can go bad, but don't recall the symptoms. (Dirty window?) Gotta ask - firing order correct or timing moved? I've run a Malloryr 6AL with one of their magnetic pick-up distributors for 15+ years with no issues.

EDIT - I did have one issue: One of the pins in the distributor lead pushed back in the plug and had an intermittent connection.

Turns out the Mallory box was bad. I scrounged up a spare and it had at least 10x the spark. I’m not sure how it can go bad but still have a small spark but that’s exactly what happened.

I read your last post, I think the ground to the original box got corroded bad enough to limit the amount of voltage the box was getting to operate on
I would put it back on after making sure there is no corrosion on the bottom mounting surfaces and see if it is okay or not

What’s the part number of the box? Also, if you PM me I’ll give you the email address fo the guy at Mallory who was the head engineer on most of those boxes and he fixes them pretty cheap.

If it’s the part number I like and you don’t want it I’d be interested in buying it.

I will be running my old Mallory VI-AL (Not 6-AL) on my LRT build. It works good when wired right. But a loose ground almost made me toss it years ago.

I have a 2nd update on this issue. I put spare box on and it fired right up which was great. But when I went back to wire it up permanently with the proper connections i lost all spark and and the box started to emit a high pitched hum. I have no idea how, I had the battery disconnected. Anyway I have disassembled both boxes and I can definitely smell burnt wires when I open them up. Nothing visibly burnt however. Long story short, I just ordered a new Summit box, it is virtually identical and I just wired it up today. Truck runs great again!