Durning routine driving my 63 Valiant dies. It's very random and very seldom. Idles great runs great but occasionally out of the blue it just dies durning driving, usually between 40 to 60MPH. Coasting to a stop, it will usually start back up immeadiately. A rebuilt 225 with approx. 6,000 miles and an electronic ignition. I had a volt meter hooked up to the balast resistor to monitor voltage when it would occur. Voltage was present when it would die. Last night it happened four times in an eight mile stretch. Each time harder to start and the fourth time, it back fied so hard that it blew out the side of my muffler. Anyone out there ever run into a problem such as this or have any good ideas of how to fix.

I have had so many problems with the pickup coils and intermittent running problems, some were new out of the box units,. If I remember correctly Doc had a problem at Vegas last year with his car.

You have an orange ECU box?

Actually any of the new ECU's can be suspect...if you bought a newer (within the last 8 years) Orange Box it can be the problem, I would also check your Elec. Ign. wiring job, make sure everything is soldered good and wrapped correctly, nothing like having a crimped job get hot and break contact every so often...

Also "spark" problems can also masquerade as "fuel" problems, hopefully the carb isn't in need of rebuilding or the needle and seat is stuck in some half way position allowing the carb to starve of gas while using the main circuit....???


-D.Idiot

It's not an orange unit. I bought from a place in Australia last year, I think the name was Mopar preformance. It was a brand new orginal Mopar distributor and electronic control unit.

I may be switching back to points. Do you know of a good place I can send the ECU and distribtor to have it checked?

The Mopar Performance kit uses the suspect ECU. Most of them are orange in colour, but not all of them. Also, the Mopar Performance kit includes a distributor with an advance curve very unsuited for use on the road.

You bought this stuff from Australia? Are you in Australia?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

No, I'm in the states. I came across the part on e-bay which happened to be Mopar Preformance in the Land down under. Do you suggest re-installing the point distribtor?

I seem to see this topic come up alot on all the Mopar boards I follow, [about 8 of them] and all the time this topic about the orange boxes comes up when people upgrade there ignition. Granted I'm not a electrical wiz by any means or one of these purist that have to have it look exactly like the factory built it. I even had problems when I tried to upgrade from my points distrubitor to elec. I could never get a decent idle just sitting in the driveway, and when pushin the go pedal I would get a miss. It was tons worse in the /6 than my 66-300 which I never could get to run decent at all. Long story short, I said screw it and installed a Pertronix and have never been happier! So easy to install, no dicking around with wiring, etc. that a monkey could do it. I say save the hassle and install the old dist. with a Pertronix and be done with it. Good Luck either way you go.

I lost a orange ECU box once, once in 7 years, 4 years after install, only box
of any type in 25+ years of using them, of any color........
lost one mag pick up and that
was on a friends car , acted like a heat sink, when it got hot from engine
heat it would work till you shut the engine off, then it would not restart till
it cooled off..... guess I'm just lucky

The one thing I recommend, insist on, is to put a seperate ground to
one of the box mount holes from the - side of battery or
at least to the engine if the other is not easy to do. Poor ground can cause
all kind of strange things and can cause the box to fail.
Most folks install the box on the fender (just like MA MO), fender
gets rusty were it bolts, you end up with weak ground to the fender
as the mount bolts loose ground.
You replace the box, clean the mount holes when you do, wham,
good ground till the mount holes get rust agian.........

I also had one ECU box mount to a fender that had poor ground to the
rest of the car, that one had me scraching my head for about
6 months because the car would just die every so often, till one night I was messing around I saw a small
sparke between the fender and fire wall, well the light went off
in my head.
From that time on I always run the ground wire to the box mount
holes...... and have not missed a beat

_________________
http://imageevent.com/jeffc
62 D100 225 3sp lwb
64 D100 A318 727pb custom lwb
66 D100 A318 4sp lwb
68 D100 B383 727 swb
65 Belveder A318 727 4d
65 Dart GT LA273 2bbl 904
73 Scamp 225 2bbl 4spOD
Old iron or no iron

I too have used Petronix and had only one give me troubles. It wasn't in my car but the guy said it wouldn't idle right,points went back in. so it was never really confirmed that the unit was the actual cause.

Gee, all I did was ask if he had an orange box! I suppose its a problem with newer units, as the one I had on my old '70 Fury lasted over 5 years (till drunk driver took car out) and if I remember right, it was made in Mexico. The Neihoff box I have now is, oddly enough, made in the USA. Before I moved it to the firewall, it was mounted on the fender with a ground wire running from the case to the alternator case. I still keep a spare ECU (the original unit that came from the junk yard that still worked) and ballast resister.

Have you tried swapping out the box and seeing what happens? Some parts stores are able to check the ECU box for you.

Wow...that's a lot of shipping, to get parts originally shipped from the US to Australia, back to the US!
No, not at all. I do recommend replacing the orange box with an HEI module, installing a NAPA Echlin long-tip rotor # MO-3000 with Standard-Bluestreak CH-410X cap, and installing NGK ZFR5N plugs gapped to 0.045".

Also, I repeat: That Mopar Performance distributor you've got has a mechanical advance curve that is working against you. It's not causing your stalling problem, but it's eating significantly into your driveability and economy. The distributor advance mechanism should be recurved to make it more suitable for street use.

You'll be able to save yourself money and annoyance in the future by asking on the board here before picking out parts to buy.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

All the boxes you can get through Chrysler/Mopar Performance, no matter the case colour, have been made in Taiwan/China for the last fair number of years, and quality and reliability are quite poor. If you're going to use an original-type ECU instead of going to HEI, use a Standard LX-100 (5-pin type) or LX-101 (4-pin type). The Echlin equivalents TP50 (5-pin) or TP51 (4-pin) should be OK for awhile, too.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I also have used the Pertronix units, got 2 right now, one in my 383 Pert. type 2 the other in my 273 standard Pert. type 1, both work just fine......
the only caution in doing this change with HEI systems, that go under
the cap, is the dist must be in good shape, any bearing ware
in the shaft will only cause porblems because the shaft will not
be alined right and move around (same issue with points), which of course causes signal issues on the pickup.

That is one advantage to the mopar kit, the dist is brand new......
even though you may have to recurve it and always have
to adjust the vacumm pod advance.....

_________________
http://imageevent.com/jeffc
62 D100 225 3sp lwb
64 D100 A318 727pb custom lwb
66 D100 A318 4sp lwb
68 D100 B383 727 swb
65 Belveder A318 727 4d
65 Dart GT LA273 2bbl 904
73 Scamp 225 2bbl 4spOD
Old iron or no iron

Dan,

Thank you for your advice. I will switch it over to an HEI system with the parts you suggested. However, you stated that the distributor I have is curved wrong. Is this not a standard electronic distributor. I thought what I bought was stock. Is there a way to distinguish.