Ignition woes

[1969Camaro]

As I have stated on here before, I bought my car 95%complete, just needed body and paint and the extras. I have complained on the forum before about the issues I was having with my car, no starts, get towed home. Had it taken to a shop, car had Sniper 1 on it, the shop tech talked to Holley several times, said they don’t support Sniper 1 and recommended upgrading to Sniper 2, which we did. Thought the problem was solved,no, had 2 more no starts, so I told the shop to take all the Sniper stuff off and went to carb. After spending thousands of dollars thinking th e problem was solved, wrong. Driving home from the shop yesterday the car just died on me. Luckily I was close to home, so the mechanic came out and towed me home. Got it home and it started right up, sounded good and then died again. Started again, tech had multimeter on the coil watching voltage, when it was running it had 14 volts and then the voltage would drop to 3 or 4 and the car would die. I have no idea what would cause this, hopefully some of you guys have some ideas. I have spent thousands of dollars, looks like needlessly, trying to be able to drive my drive and not get stranded. I have to use a shop because of my various issues I can’t do the work on my car any longer. Sorry to be so long winded, ideas and thoughts are welcome. Thank you

[gbranham]

How's the health of your battery and your ignition box? Seems like the culprit might be there somewhere, if the coil is losing voltage sporadically.

Greg

[rickshank]

What about connections / grounds? Maybe the grounds aren't clean metal underneath?

[rich grsc]

The system MUST be wired directly to the battery, is it?

Oops, missed that you removed the good stuff from the car

[weendoggy]

As you can see, blaming something without good diagnosing didn't work. Now that you're back to a carb, you still have to diagnose the issue. Voltage drop is a big deal, no matter what. Do you have a voltmeter in dash? Do you monitor it? This is the easy part. Next is actually checking how it's all wired and that it's in good sound order. If you're dropping voltage at the coil, are you dropping voltage overall? Also, are you using a CD Box for ignition.

[1969Camaro]

Volt meter in dash still shows about 14 volts when the car dies, I don’t have a cd box just dist and coil, I replaced the coil about 2 weeks ago. Yes I wasted a lot of money, at this point just want a running car. Runs really well until it dies, it will restart after sitting awhile. My son kept telling me all along it was t the Sniper, what’s done is done. I’ll see if I can get the tech to double check the wiring harness or even run no wires for the coil circuit. Rich, the Sniper is gone, just plain old carb and coil now. [/QUOTE]

[Norm B]

The coil wire has its own terminal on the ignition switch. The FFR supplied ignition switch has a checkered history. Check the voltage at the ignition terminal on the switch when the problem occurs.

[mrglaeser]

Battery, Alternator, Voltage regulator if separate, or lose connection some where on the power supply or ground.

[weendoggy]

Volt meter in dash still shows about 14 volts when the car dies, I don’t have a cd box just dist and coil, I replaced the coil about 2 weeks ago. Yes I wasted a lot of money, at this point just want a running car. Runs really well until it dies, it will restart after sitting awhile. My son kept telling me all along it was t the Sniper, what’s done is done. I’ll see if I can get the tech to double check the wiring harness or even run no wires for the coil circuit. Rich, the Sniper is gone, just plain old carb and coil now.

Just because the voltmeter in dash shows, doesn't mean you have 12v + at the coil positive terminal. Where does that wire come from and get power to the coil. I'm wondering whoever wired the car used a circuit with limited source. As a good test, run a wire direct from a known good 12v batter source to the + coil side and see what happens. This would be hot all the time so only do it when you want to test. Remove and tape the existing one for the test.

[JMD]

It's always a good idea to put more and/or better grounds in to and from all sensitive areas. Block, alternator, battery, all ignition components...make sure everything has a good path to ground. If it's doesn't fix this problem it will certainly prevent additional problems down the road.

[Steve1979]

You mentioned that you are not running an electronic ignition box, just a distributor and coil (and you have changed the coil). What kind of distributor are you running or did I miss this in the above posts?

[Norm B]

Most of the items that can cause a voltage drop at the positive terminal of the coil should be noticeable by the smoke show they create! Coil, coil wire, distributor wire or the distributor itself shorting to ground should very quickly overheat the wiring. There is no, or shouldn’t be any, circuit protection on the coil power wire. It gets direct battery voltage and all the current it can draw directly through the ignition switch. That would very quickly destroy the lighter gauge wires in that circuit if your problem was a short.
That leaves you with a power supply problem. You said the volt meter on the dash reads 12 volts while you’re only getting 3 at the coil. That means power to the ignition switch and out to the accessory side of the switch is good.
The only things left are the coil wire connections or the switch itself. We can’t tell you what connections to check or where they are without knowing what wiring harness you have. Suggest you start at the switch and trace the ignition wire to the coil. If that all checks out, replace the switch.


Good luck

Norm

[weendoggy]

You said the volt meter on the dash reads 12 volts while you’re only getting 3 at the coil. That means power to the ignition switch and out to the accessory side of the switch is good.

Not necessarily. It's better to run ignition from the IGN terminal, not ACC. Reason is, the ACC doesn't give power in the Start position, which would give the coil nothing. Still needs to find out where the coil gets 12v. from.

[1969Camaro]

All good suggestions, will follow up on those,we spoke to a tech support guy from Holley, he seems to think it’s in the distributor, suggested ordering a cheap one from Amazon just to check out that premise, for $60. Can’t hurt.

[Nigel Allen]

your reported fault was that there is low voltage on the positive connection to the ignition coil. This needs to be sorted before spending money on any other components.

doubt it is the distributor as the positive wire does not go through it. Someone on this forum will have a circuit diagram for a Ron Francis wiring loom that you likely have fitted to your car. There shouldn't be too many connections between the ignition switch and the positive on the coil. Because you know the voltage is going low, that is the first problem you need to sort out. It may likely be the only problem.

A worthwhile tip: Most often electrical faults start with a single issue. I think that's where you are with your car so concentrate on that and don't lose focus.

Don't overthink this and keep buying parts you probably don't need at this stage. It's purely a bad connection.

Hope this helps.

Nige

[BornWestUSA]

You can run a wire from 12 volt +, directly to the coil + to eliminate the ignition switch and the existing wiring as the cause of the stalling.

Use caution, you will now have no way to "kill" or turn off the engine. Maybe have a fuse holder in the wire for a kill "switch"
Ballast resistors or resistance wire to the coil + used to be a thing, I don't think the Ron Francis used it?

https://www.carparts.com/blog/bad-ballast-resistor-symptoms/

[weendoggy]

^ mentioned above #9

[1969Camaro]

Forgive me for being so dense, it was suggested I run a wire from a 12 volt source to positive side coil to see if it would run then. Is that while attempting to start with the switch? That’s after disconnecting the orange wire from switch. If car ru s it is the Ora ge wire from switch or the switch itself..the wiring harness is a FF5 harness. If switch is bad, what switch has been used to replace the stock switch? If car still won’t start with the test wire, I would assume it’s the distributor.

[Nigel Allen]

Forgive me for being so dense, it was suggested I run a wire from a 12 volt source to positive side coil to see if it would run then. Is that while attempting to start with the switch? That’s after disconnecting the orange wire from switch. If car ru s it is the Ora ge wire from switch or the switch itself..the wiring harness is a FF5 harness. If switch is bad, what switch has been used to replace the stock switch? If car still won’t start with the test wire, I would assume it’s the distributor.

Dont feel embarrassed to ask questions.
- Connect the wire as suggested to see if the car will run.
- It may, or may not be the ignition switch. As you are getting full volts on the dash voltmeter gauge, it may well be elsewhere.
- The fault will generate some heat. Check for damaged wiring, plugs / sockets. Unfortunately I am unfamiliar with Ron Francis wiring loom (built my own). Replace ignition fuse, even if it looks ok, and check fuse holder for heat damage. Ask on the forum for a Ron Francis wiring diagram on this forum. It may contain

Fix the low voltage problem at the coil positive first. If the engine started and ran as you said in your earlier post, then your distributor is most likely fine. Try and get some help from someone who knows how to trace faults with a meter, supply beer and pizza. Fly me to the US, I'll do it for beer. I can guarantee that using a meter to measure volt drop, will find the fault in less than 10 minutes. Without a multi-meter and someone to interpret the measurements, it is like driving through a city without a road map.

You are correct, that if it wont fire with the coil positive supplied directly from battery positive, then it is likely to be a distributor issue, like bad / poorly adjusted points. If your distributor is electronic, which i dont think you specified, you may need more specific assistance.

You got this. It will be satisfying when you beat the problem.

Cheers,

Nige

[SteveHsr]

Restarts after sitting a while indicates maybe heat related. Coil? Ballast resistor?

[BornWestUSA]

Forgive me for being so dense, it was suggested I run a wire from a 12 volt source to positive side coil to see if it would run then. Is that while attempting to start with the switch? That’s after disconnecting the orange wire from switch. If car ru s it is the Ora ge wire from switch or the switch itself..the wiring harness is a FF5 harness. If switch is bad, what switch has been used to replace the stock switch? If car still won’t start with the test wire, I would assume it’s the distributor.

Don't remove any wires from the ignition switch yet.

Remove the wire from the + side of the coil (and tape it over so It does not short out while it's disconnected) then install a jumper wire from the coil + to battery + to test.

You are giving the coil a known good 12 volt source to see if the wiring going to the coil is the issue.

Report back.

[1969Camaro]

I am leaving for the weekend, I will work on this issue next week, and report back my findings. Thanks for all the advice