MSD 6AL box and harness question

[HP_Cuda]

Neil

So if I get this straight, in the first pic I use the blue wire to the coil. Cover up the black wire as the MSD box will provide neg to the coil. Grey wire will not be used as my car did not come with a tach but I added one of those redline guage in the delete spot. I guess I will have to run the wire from the new tach to the msd box.

The 2wire plug will be covered up as its not needed.

The two white plugs to the ballast seem wrong, why do the have two inputs each? You only need two total?
Apparently from dodj's earlier post you tie the blue and brown wires that went to the ballast and use that for your MSD input.

Ughhh



Thx
B

[Chryco Psycho]

nope , MSD typically has a black & orange wire to feed both the positive & ground to the coil , so only 2 of the wires in those pix are used .
 Ballast has dropped power to both the coil & the ECU when running one side is the coil feed the other is the ECU feed but most ECUs have the resister internal now so tthey only have 4 pins in the ecu plug in .  The blue & brown wire both connect to one ballast terminal , connect this to the small red MSD feed & the MSD will have power both cranking & running

[Colorado-0A5599]

nope , MSD typically has a black & orange wire to feed both the positive & ground to the coil , so only 2 of the wires in those pix are used .
 Ballast has dropped power to both the coil & the ECU when running one side is the coil feed the other is the ECU feed but most ECUs have the resister internal now so tthey only have 4 pins in the ecu plug in so the blue & brown wire both connect to one ballast terminal , connect this to the small red MSD feed & the MSD will have power both cranking & running

So I can run my 4-pin Mopar ecu  By jumping the dual ballast , eliminating resister ohms?  Using MSD ignition or using 4-pin ecu. So as to keep ballast in place, right?  tia

TC

[Chryco Psycho]

If you have the 4 pin ECU the only load across the ballast is the coil feed so you can still use a single ballast , with e MSD no ballast is used at all as the coil is fed power from the MSD

[HP_Cuda]

I think Neil is trying to say you can do this:

[HP_Cuda]

So I am trying to nail this all down:

1) Take the blue and brown harness wires from the ballast connectors and join them for the little red wire going to the MSD box
2) The negative from the harness is not used and the MSD black wire is used for negative coil
3) The orange wire from the MSD box is used for the positive coil
4) The white wire on the MSD box is not used
5) The grey harness wire is not used as I have an aftermarket redline tach which will be hooked up to the MSD grey lead.
6) The heavy red and heavy black from the MSD box is hooked up to the battery

I think thats about it!
 

[Chryco Psycho]

Sounds right to me !!
 The ballast wiring makes no sense , looks like a short to ground , with a 4 pin ECU all you need is on side of the ballast to feed to coil with a stock ign system , I was answering Colorado about running a ballast . with the MSD you do not use a ballast at all

[HP_Cuda]

Correct I was referring to his post as I found it in the MSD instructions.

I will absolutely use no ballast resistor!

Thanks Neil!

Sounds right to me !!
 The ballast wiring makes no sense , looks like a short to ground , with a 4 pin ECU all you need is on side of the ballast to feed to coil with a stock ign system , I was answering Colorado about running a ballast . with the MSD you do not use a ballast at all

[Aracer]

Since you have to change connectors make sure you have the distributor wired right.     Mallory Al6, have misprinted instructions and switch wire color on the diagram, I emailed and they acknowledged the error.

[HP_Cuda]

The distributor connects directly to the MSD 6AL harness, I don't think that will be a problem.

On another note - hopefully Neil will chime in

I like to ask twice and cut once. So based on this picture I am going to cut the ECU connector and ensure it's capped good. Then I will cut off both ballast resistor connectors off then take the three blue wires and the brown wire and use them to connect to the MSD red wire? As well, I will cap off the last multi-colored wire that goes to one of the ballast plug.

[CudamanTom]

 

[Chryco Psycho]

remove the ECU plug entirely
 the 2 blue wires on the ballast plug should be connected together already anyway all you need to do is connect 1 blue 12v feed & the brown 12v feed while cranking to the small red trigger wire for the MSD unit , the MSD kit usually has a pigtail with 2 male ends & 1 female just  plug into t he plugs if you do not want to cut the plugs off .

[HP_Cuda]

Neil

Thanks for the pointer but my thought is to solder the connections together so down the road I won't have to deal with corroded connectors or loose connectors. Resistance (IR) is lowered as well. The downside is that you don't have the agility to just unplug something to make quick changes.

So both ballast connectors will be cut off, the two blue wires will be soldered together, and then solder the blue/brown together with the red from the MSD unit.

Finally cut the ECU connector off and seal it.

Bingo!
B

[Chryco Psycho]

you don't need both blue wires just the 12v feed soldered to the brown & connected to the MSD trigger , , you can connect an electric choke there too if you have one . nothing is used from the 5 pin plug

[HP_Cuda]

After studying a ton of electrical diagrams I think I have this down.

The two smaller blue wires are meant to go to the ECU which I am not using so I don't need to worry about them at all.

Here is a reference which finally made sense to me:
http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/Dual_Ballast_5pin.pdf

I'm good to go, now I just have to figure out where I want to mount everything and then wire it all up!

 

p.s. The smarter move would be to not get a engine harness for an electronic setup when I don't need it. For the life of me I know I ordered the right part but in the melee of getting a ton of parts I got the wrong one which has led to so much confusion. Word to the wise if using an MSD ignition get the regular harness for a 70 Ebody.