Holley sniper

Forget the diode, would serve no purpose except adding complexity.

It’s not really a decision to get rid of the ballast resistor, you have to. The Sniper wants full voltage in crank and run - can’t do that with the ballast resistor in place and functioning.

Way back in the Jurassic period, the ballast resistor was designed/used to prevent full-fielding the coil during crank. This prolonged service life of the ignition system by not burning points.

What you’re doing when you “tie IGN 1 and IGN 2 together” is bridging the ignition switch crank and run positions to eliminate the circuit break between the two points. The car won’t even start or run with a Sniper (or MSD for that matter) unless the start circuits are tied together.

Sniper is digital, don’t need to worry about saving your oil-filled canister coil or points for 100k miles. It’s out of warranty by now anyway.

What ignition are you using? If you’re trying to get away with a regular distributor and orange box forget it - you’re defeating half of the Sniper’s benefit which is allowing the ECU to control timing.

If you’re willing to go EFI, ditch the rest of the ancient technology and give the thing what it needs.