Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
I can't decide if I'm cursed or just a total freakin' idiot. During a break in the rain last night we tried to start the engine again. As fast as it spun I suspected we had lost spark. After a quick test it was confirmed.
We weren't sure why. It could have been the FAST controller, the MSD Digital 6+, or the coil. It was late, the rain had restarted, - we called it a night.
I went online and sought directions for testing the MSD box. According to MSD the box can be tested by intermittently jumping the green & purple signal while looking for a spark to ground from the coil. If no spark is present there's supposed to be a problem with either the MSD box or the coil.
Thursday it was still raining. When it let up long enough, we ran the test. We had no spark.
The easiest thing to try was swapping out the coil. We had a new Mallory unit that we'd bought to replace the ACCEL coil we'd already robbed from the Charger project. We still had no spark after the swap.
I'm running the same MSD Digital 6+ box on my Barracuda so I decided to repeat the test on it to see if we got different results. The test worked on the 'Cuda. We had spark. So it appears to have been a valid test method.
The next question is where do we go from here. We could rob the Barracuda and leave it disabled until a new box arrives. That would allow us to make further progress on the Roadrunner. I've got MSD boxes on the Duster and dually but they're not direct replacements for the MSD 6+. If we order a new box it won't be here in time to get the Roadrunner done for Spencer to drive it back to Iowa.
While the rain is coming down hard again we're having the debate. If we don't finish the car I'll be providing taxi service for Spencer's ride back.