Tach don't work

Mine was acting whacky and it turned out to be an insulated ground on the back.... Good Luck...

thanks, i will check that out. Are you in Orlando?

Had the same set up. Tried the MSD tach adapter also. Could never get it to work.
Went to Pantera Electronics ignition controller. Works great now.

I made the mistake of pulling out the coil wire from the distributor cap to turn the engine over without it firing.

The coil threw a lightening bolt about 12 inches and just missed me.

Forget the MSD. It's complete trash. Get the Pantera Electronics unit. You will love it.

I've heard lots of stuff about MSD, but I have had mine for 12 years. Never a single problem. Never failed to start immediately. No failures. No repairs. No tuneups. No nothing. Maybe you need to have the whole MSD package:

MSD #8577 Magnetic Pick-up Distributor
MSD #8203 Blaster Coil
MSD #8920 Ford Tach Adapter
MSD #3119 8MM Silicone Spark Plug Wire Set
MSD #8581 Bronze Distributor Gear
MSD #6420 6AL Ignition Box with Rev Limiter
MSD #8746 RPM Module Kit 6000 - 6800
MSD #8984 Starter Saver w/ Signal Stablizer

My OE Tach works fine. I also have a column mounted aftermarket tach. Both are perfectly calibrated and identical.

... I run my 8350 just about every day, it failed at four years old and MSD rebuilt it for 60 bucks. I have the 8350, MSD tach adapter, blaster and 6A box. I'm W of Orlando along the coast, Brooksville/Weeki Wachee

It, the MSD, won't run the tach with a system using the Ford distributor. I am not a novice on that particular set up.

The DT tach is not a Ford Tach. It does work like it though in that it runs in series with the coil.

With the MSD, the blue tach wire in the harness is dead.

The MSD tach adapter will not work with the Ford distributor.

The simplest fix is to change to the MSD distributor.

I went another route. I kept the Ford electronic distributor for reliability reasons.

I replaced the Ford electronics brain with the Pantera Electronics brain.

It has several advantages to it. It works with the stock tach, it retards the ignition 14 degrees at starting to turn the engine over easier, it plugs in, it plug in to a high voltage coil, has an adjustable rpm limiter, has led system lights for checking operation at a glance.

No one, I repeat, no one was able to make my tach run with the MSD 6a irregardless of what MSD add ons we put in the system.

No matter. It's fixed and is staying this way.

That sounds like a pretty good set up Doug....

quote:

Originally posted by PLT-1:
That sounds like a pretty good set up Doug....

Try it...you'll like LOVE it.

Pantera-electonics.com

I did change to the MSD distributor and the 6AL along with the tach adaptor recommended by tech at MSD. Thats when all my problems started with the tach not working properly. I hate to change out the gauges to auto meter just to get the tach working.

PTL-1, we need to meet up one weekend in Crystal River and have lunch and compare notes.

I, like you have had nothing but issues with MSD.
I went the route that you are at and it was nothing but a waste of time and money.

According to Steve Wilkinson, the MSD 6a is rampant in the Pantera.

He requested Jon Haas @ Pantera Electronics to repackage the Pantera Ignition into a box that would replace the MSD footprint exactly.

I can't argue with Wilkinson for knowing his customers but I'm wondering if the Pantera owners using the MSD have replace the original Pantera Tach, and I strongly suspect that they did?

Advice? Pull out the entire MSD component list from the car, put it on ebay, and sell it to an 18 year old with terminal achne who will think it is the coolest thing since electricity and go the Ford solid state distributor/Pantera Electronics route.

Determine then who's advice is good, and who knows WTF they are talking about? Talk is cheap. I walk the walk.

FWIW, I've got the MSD 8350 "ready to run" distributor alone. No other boxes, and it works just fine with the stock tach and EZ-EFI system.

If one already has the 8350, just eliminate the 6AL box and it should work.

i will try removing the box first before trashing the whole system. If i remember right the ready to run does have a rev limiting ability.

I am on my third MSD 6AL box since 2006. They run for a while and then just quit with no warning. Inevitably when I am a million miles from nowhere, leaving me stranded out of cell range and sweating with visions of scenes from the movie Deliverance as I trudge along trying to find some place from which to call a tow truck.

I now run two boxes so I can switch between them when one fails (as it did yet again last year).

Some guys may get lucky with theirs but, based on my experience, MSD makes a garbage product. Time for a change, methinks.

My MSD 8350 without the box has worked flawlessly and the Tach works fine once the ballast resistor is removed and the tach is connected directly to the (-) side of the coil. Have not tried connecting it to the "tach/rev limit" wire of the 8350, but that may also work.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter H:
I am on my third MSD 6AL box since 2006. They run for a while and then just quit with no warning. Inevitably when I am a million miles from nowhere, leaving me stranded out of cell range and sweating with visions of scenes from the movie Deliverance as I trudge along trying to find some place from which to call a tow truck.

I now run two boxes so I can switch between them when one fails (as it did yet again last year).

Some guys may get lucky with theirs but, based on my experience, MSD makes a garbage product. Time for a change, methinks.

Peter. You may have noticed I have a dislike of the MSD 6A?
I didn't like having to learn to play the banjo. Hurts my...fingers, yup, fingers, that's it.

quote:

Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
Peter. You may have noticed I have a dislike of the MSD 6A?
I didn't like having to learn to play the banjo. Hurts my...fingers, yup, fingers, that's it.

Ha Hah! Good one. However, in your case, being resident in New York as you are, I would have thought that inopportune MSD breakdowns in scary places may have involved rap rather than banjos.

Regardless, the fact is that MSD does not supply vaseline with their product and so I will be actively looking for a less painful alternative.

People just don't understand New York. That isn't Vasolene at all, it is dialectic grease.

I must admit that I had a different perception of Vancouver though too in all fairness UNTIL the Rangers won the Stanley Cup there in '94 and these nice, quiet, moderate citizens went down town and rioted! I guess everyone needed new TV's and carrying them out through the store windows was really the underlying factor?