new duraspark

[bigcatchdaniel555]

i am going to the junkyard today looking for a duraspark dizzy i know they can be found on many vehicles mainly from the late 70's early 80's however when i find one what all do i need to take also does the mototr have to be a 200 or can it be a 250 or 300?

 

[fordconvert]

240-300 is differnt, only good parts there would be module and harness. As far as module and harness goes you can use those off almost any ford from 75-81(ish). I dont know about the 250, I know it had a differnt deck height and cam location but Im not sure if they used the same dizzy or not.

You want complete dizzy, module (finned metal box), coil, and the wires that go between that stuff which will include 3 plugs and the strange coil clip connector. Get as much of the wire as you can that goes into the main car harness so you have more to work with on yours. Spark plug wires will be differnt than the points also so if you see some nice ones in the yard and dont like to spend money on new ones you may want to grab those also.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

i did a little research and found that the 250 and 200 both use the same dizzy part number so it looks like i can use either one.

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

the early DS setup uses a small cap like a points ignition and the later ones use a two piece cap.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

i put a hold on the duraspark for a while but since i got my 2bbl rochester working good i though i would give it a shot i couldnt find any decent used ones so i went to autozone and got the dizzy, cap, rotor module and adaptor cap., now for the fun part i cant find the harness and after lookiong at some other threads i need to know how to make my own connections the dizzy is a single vac and has a black and white wire, an orange one and a purple one the module has an orange one ,a purple and a green , and a black wire. plus the other plug which has a white and a red but i'm pretty sure if i read the sticky on top right is for ignition. i have read most threads and they have all had the harness so im dumbfounded so please talk to me like your toddler.

 

[fordconvert]

There are 4 wires in the dizzy harness? I have always seen 3, orange, black, & purple. If you have the right Ford type module it should plug straight into the dizzy. You then only have to worry about the other harness from the module that goes to the coil and your powersource(s). I think NAPA has the connectors listed on their website if you want to buy them. I just used standard crimp on connectors jammed into the plug with some RTV to keep them dry. You could also just cut off the connector and use the splice method of your choice, I perfer solder and shrink tube.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

i just looked at a few more diagrams and i think i figured it out basically all the wires color coordinate the green/4th wire in the harness is for the tach . i forgot to mention i have a full 12v coil it isnt high voltage but it is made to run on 12v without a resistor common sense says it will work will it?

 

[fordconvert]

Pretty much any coil will work you just have to pay attention if/when you start going with wider plug gaps because thats what has a larger effect of the demands of the coil. Also if you go with things like MSD6 type boxes that will put more demands on the coil. You also have to know what your trigger can handle, in this case the Duraspark module a stock module may not be able to handle some of the more expensive 'performance' coils. Blasters, flamethrowers, TFI, ect.... should be fine its just the more exotic ones that may be too much for a stock module.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

does anyone usea ballast resistor with the duraspark i have heardit both ways however i have a 12v coil now and no resistor it has worked fine with points for as long as i have had it.

 

[Anonymous]

... I just used standard crimp on connectors jammed into the plug with some RTV to keep them dry.

That's exactly what I did... been running for a month w/out any problems.

... the green/4th wire in the harness is for the tach.

Green wire should go to the neg(-) side of the coil.

... does anyone usea ballast resistor with the duraspark i have heardit both ways however i have a 12v coil now and no resistor it has worked fine with points for as long as i have had it.

I'm running a straight 12v to the coil... no problems.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

got everything hooked up motor starts and runs great adjusted trhe timing and plugs and it idles sweeet! a huge improvement over points and pertronix it took a total of about 4 hours with the parts in hand.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

what is the standard plug gap for the durasark conversion mine are now set at .035in does it usually go wider.

 

[addo]

Try 45, or even 50 thou. Glad it's running.

 

[bigcatchdaniel555]

one more thing i noticed with my new 2bbl rochester when i punch it fro a dead stop or moderate speed it hesitates a little the vac advance works fine the only thing is when i got the aaptor i had to bore it out quite a bit to make the carb fit without binding so the inside of the carb fits a little weird like one barrel is more open on the inside than the other and one screw is adjusted almost all the way out and the other is normally adjusted it isnt running rich either according to the plugs the carb is off a 400 gm motor about 365-400cfm so maybe its just a little too much for the 200 to swallow other than that it runs good and gets good economy.