my coil wire is dead on my truck, is their any wiring diagrams out to use the hei ignition when wireing with no oridgional coil wires to work with?

i treid to do this by the one showing a ballast resister but something isnt working right. i know were to get start power from, but this wire stays at 12 volts in run also on this setup.

also does anyone know if an msd blaster ignition box will work on a slant 6 with a 78 vac distributer?

this truck is getting some spark, but only on the 3rd to 4th time key is turned.

It's really difficult to help you from long distance.
It sounds like you have pretty much butchered the original wire harness. You really need the factory wiring diagrams to help you know what you had, and so you can figure out where to connect your new HEI ignition.

Your 1987 truck had a dark blue wire from the ignition switch that had a couple splices under the hood from which it branched off to the ESA computer, ignition coil positive terminal, voltage regulator and alternator, and several other under hood things. There was no ballast resistor used on this truck.

I do have a 1987 Dodge truck service manual with the wiring diagrams but there are a lot of pages of wiring and the poor manual is falling apart from me studying it over and over and over.

Here is a 1987 manual on Ebay....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 7967243008

Also note that a 1986 Dodge (rear wheel drive) truck manual for D and W series will also work. I had a chance years ago to compare the 1986 and 1987 manuals side-by-side and they were identical.

well the wires are not butchered, but the truck was in poor condition when received, it had been sitting for a few years when dad bought it, he drove it about 4 to 6 tiumes a year for the next 4 years, then gave it to me when i moved out. by this time it had sat long enough to need some major work, new transmission, clutch, voltage reg, carb, starter, fly wheel, and starter relay. the reason i want to use the hei ignition, is that it will allow me to drive the truck while i am saving up to re wire the engine compartment. to do that i need the ignition to be separate from the harness that is almost rotton, wires are getting brittle in it. the hei ignition sounded like a low cost way to do this, and allow me to finally get the truck painted this year. since the coil wire is not getting power, no voltage at all in eitheir run or start condition, i need to run separt wires for the power side of ignition. my main real question is how to get the run wire and start wire to coil without a ballast resister as is shown in the wiring i have seen for hei ignition.

Step 1:
Purchase a internally resisted ignition coil (like the ones uses on factory HEI equipt GM cars)

Step 2:
Find a wire that is hot when the key is in the run condition. You could use a meter or test light. You could also use a wiring diagram for your truck to help you get started in your search.

A good place to start is the fuse box. Pick a fuse and tap into the wire 'after' the fuse (for safety).

You've said that this is temporary only, so just run the wire out the nearest hole and over to the coil and HEI.

BAM! you're running.

I may have missed something, so keep your eyes open for other replys. I don't recall seeing you mention replacing the distributor ever. The computer controlled ignition used a fixed position distributor. To make the engine run respectable, you'll need a distributor with a mechanical advance setup. You could use the distributor from any 1974-1980 slant six car/truck. It's also possible to use the older points style system, which is even simpler than an HEI swap(although not quite as 'trick'). Either item can frequently be found on ebay or through a request in the parts wanted section.

_________________
1980 Aspen 225 super six