Mopar Muscle Association UK

Hi guys,

I'm in the process of rewiring (sorting out the wiring anyway) the Dart. I will be posting some comical photos later of the state of the wiring loom and to be honest, I'm not sure how the car has ever run/not caught fire before now.

Last week I bought an MSD 6AL-2, coil, and dizzy. My question is can I bin the ignition ballast my car used to use and all the wiring to/from it. Or is there another remaining purpose for this block of light grey concrete?

(so far I have found 1 length of 1.5 meter wire with no less than 6 joins in it )

GJUK wrote:Hi guys,

I'm in the process of rewiring (sorting out the wiring anyway) the Dart. I will be posting some comical photos later of the state of the wiring loom and to be honest, I'm not sure how the car has ever run/not caught fire before now.

Last week I bought an MSD 6AL-2, coil, and dizzy. My question is can I bin the ignition ballast my car used to use and all the wiring to/from it. Or is there another remaining purpose for this block of light grey concrete?

(so far I have found 1 length of 1.5 metre wire with no less than 6 joins in it )

Many connectors in wire.........yep. That's what fried my electronic ignition module........fooled the VR into letting 18v through......toasty.

Virgin wiring loom, untouched by human hands...



Bulkhead connector was in mint condition...



From the inside (now removed)

What a mess. How did the car ever run at all?
I found wires fused and burnt to each other on the cabin side of the bulkhead connector. so many joins, all cut out now and new cable run in places required.

I ran the 12v feed away from a new connector, soldered it together and heat shrinked.
The other connectors I labelled up, chopped off and used new connector blocks which Blue on here suggested (great bits of kit).

I am left with a few wires which ran to the ballast, not sure if these are no longer required when I plumb in the MSD kit...

Question 3547...

There is a cable that comes from an area near the starter, but conencted to the brake lines. Is this some kind of brake fluid level sender? Colour of the cable is black with a very thick rubbery coating.

Oh, I missed off my fave photo.
This is how one wire was connected. two 'U' shape bends, hooked around each other and a bit of sellotape.

Depends on the MSD. Mine just runs a straight 12v like any other car. The mopar ignition steps down to 8 hence the ballast. RTFM for that MSD. The answer will be there - so if you can, bin the ballast ! (but make sure you have voltage reg!!)

Agree, look at the MSD website and they have some good wiring diagrams. Having said that, regarding the ballast, the answer is you don't need it, but you can keep it if you want to! I kept mine for two reasons - first it makes it easy to revert to stock if the MSD fails and you want to get home, and secondly its a really handy way to get a signal to the MSD which is live during both start and run. The MSD just uses this as a logic signal pretty much, voltage is unimportant.

Neither of these are major advantages, but personally I didn't see a major downside either (the only pro of removing ballast is one less failure point AFAIK).

Your call either way, have fun....!

I really can't see why you've delved into that pristine loom,I mean it was running wasn't it?

latil wrote:I really can't see why you've delved into that pristine loom,I mean it was running wasn't it?

MrNorm and Morgan, cheers. I've not got the kit yet as it was about £150 cheaper buying direct from Summit Racing, rather than RealSteel or Wasp where it was nearly £750 iirc.

Jsut trying to get everything ready before it turns up. It seems I can bin the ballast (which is good as I've already done that ) and run the ignition system on its own little circuit.

Here ya go. This suggests 12v - no mention of ballast... (this came from the manual for my ready-to-run, but seems to cover modules too)

That black wire goes to the brake failure warning sensor on the 4 way valve on the bulkhead below the master cylinder if you still have it. I binned mine and just put a brake pipe connector block in. The sensor is a brake fluid circuit failure thing but often seize up and are a pig to bleed. It looks like a compensator but isn't.
Thats for a 73 Challenger anyway, maybe the same on a Dart?

MattH wrote:That black wire goes to the brake failure warning sensor on the 4 way valve on the bulkhead below the master cylinder if you still have it. I binned mine and just put a brake pipe connector block in. The sensor is a brake fluid circuit failure thing but often seize up and are a pig to bleed. It looks like a compensator but isn't.
Thats for a 73 Challenger anyway, maybe the same on a Dart?

Thanks mate, yes I still have it and will disregard that cable, probably get ripped out in the coming year or so.

Thanks!

morgan wrote:Here ya go. This suggests 12v - no mention of ballast... (this came from the manual for my ready-to-run, but seems to cover modules too)

Thanks, on another forum they suggest connecting the brown and the blue cable which went to the ballast, then run the MSD switched igntion to this.

brown is ign 1 and blue is ign2 or something like that, one runs 12v only when starting, the other 9v or so when running. Together they supply the required 12v to the MSD.

It'll probably all catch fire

From memory both wires have 12v - it is only AFTER the Ballast that the voltage to the original 6v Coil is dropped to 9v. That is the function of the Ballast.

It was designed to put 12v onto a 6v coil during cranking only to avoid a voltage drop to the coil caused by the actuation of the starter motor.


On race cars with high compression we wire the "small" red MSD wire to a switch in the cab so that you can spin the motor over and then turn on the ignition to avoid kick back and reduce load and wear on the Starter Motor.

Good anti-theft device too if you do not use the white wire for that purpose.

I found it very useful when the throttle jammed open too!!!