sand rail ignition for my 2.3L engine

[avincent450]

hey guys I just bought a sand rail with a ford 2.3L on a bus trans and it was fuel injected but it was a huge mess of wires and ran poor due to a cracked head and a broken dumy distributor drive and a lack of oil presure it smoked the motor and the wiring harnes was a mess! I have gotten a new motor that I put one of the old heads on with the angled outer ports and have a carb and intake and a duraspark distributor and have no idea how to wire the distributor and the coil! I got the distributor with a KEM aftermarket ignition box.

I want to make this as simple as possible even if it means getting a different distributor I want a simple ignition system kind of like the hei on a chevy all u have is a powered keyed wire and a tack wire. I gues what I dont understand is why I need the ignition box and is there a simpler way to do this? its just a sand rail simplicity makes for less hassel and well less wires

what my question is how do I wire this thing including the the coil (the coil is a universal one with screw on leads) and do I need a balast resistor? and if so where do I get one and what does it look like?


Any help would be greatly apreciated going to try to have this thing runing tonight!

 

[John Smith]

in the tech library

is the duraspark wiring stuff...
it WILL get you there...

look at your coil specs to see if you need a resister or not....

some do some don't....

a good coil mfg will tell you...learning how this works will help you a bunch

 

[BogusSVO]

are you wanting to keep the EFI? or you going carb?

 

[avincent450]

Keeping the the carb. I'm going to carb all of the wires are gone. I think I have all of the wires right for the distributor just curious how the coil links into the sysem

 

[avincent450]

I think I have the duraspark 1 it has an external ignition box not the one on the side of the distributor.

 

[SMTGREG]

Here is a picture of the wiring for duraspark system. The resistor is 1.3 OHMS The Module to use has a blue color where the wires go into the module. This is a very durable and well tested system to use. I use this system in my MGB with a 2.3. I extended the wiring and mounted the module inside under the dash away from the heat and moisture.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

If you use a stock coil and plugs out of a 83-86 you dont need the resistor just use the start-run circuit from the switch for the coil and the start for the starter solenoid. much better spark