What is this part? - Now the car won't start

[73CudaDude]

Just put on my new carb and the engine was cranking and all was well.  2 minutes later I put on my new coil and now it wont crank.  Put the old one back on and still nothing.  This broken part connects to the block and one of the terminals on the coil (seemed like it was on +).  Can anyone tell me what it is, what it does and confirm if it goes to + or -?.  And as an added bonus just turned the key to run to try and start and smoke is coming out of the dash. 

This is for 73 Barracuda 318
Battery 100% fresh charge
New battery cables
All wiring replaced with new M+S wiring harnesses
New ignition switch
Entire electrical system was working
Replacing stock coil with Accel 8140

[lulurocks]

Well first off where there smoke there's fire. Disconnect your battery asap!!


Get under the dash and check the colum  harness  , even though it's new it could have a bad connector, that harness has a lot of load on it in a stock system . 

If you had smoke the. Culprit should stand out like a burnt sore thumb

Also look at the back of the amp meter if you have one , those are a known fire waiting to happen


That peice is a  noise filter capacitor it connects to the. + side of the coil then ground .   It filters out noise from the electrical system so  your radio doesn't pick it up.

[73CudaDude]

When the key is on but not turned to crank, the oil pressure light is normally on.  When all was dead, that light was off then blinked a bit, then smoke.