Ok. I'll start this thread by saying I'm pretty useless when it comes to electrical stuff (does the term "Teats on a boar" ring a bell?), but I have access to an '80 Aspen with EI. My question is; What parts should I grab from the donor car to facilitate the swap? Dizzy, module, perhaps a portion of the harness (if so, which portion?).....

I'm running a pertronix kit on my points dizzy now, but I'm suspicious that my dizzy needs a rebuild (dancing timing mark, more end-play than I'd like to see) and I figure I'd like to swap to a system with more widely available replacement parts as well as work in a recurve. This car is my daily driver, so I'd rather not rebuild the dizzy currently in the car without a back-up unit.

Thanks in advance,

Nat

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1970 four-door Dart, 225/A-904/2.45 gears. 0-60 in twenty three minutes!

module, ballast, distributor, harness

If you have time, cut apart the engine harness in the junkyard and keep all the wires that connect the electronic ignition together (module plug, distributor plug, ballast plugs). It's been a while since I pulled one, but if I remember correctly you only need to cut one wire connected to the engine room harness to remove the electronic ignition wires in one piece.

If you're lazy just pull the entire harness and pick it apart at home.

I would get the distributor, alternator, resistor, control module, voltage regulator, and wiring harness. If you trace the wires connected to the distributor and ignition module, you will find that the dual field alternator and the ignition system all converge down to two wires at the firewall- Ignition 1 and Ignition 2. If you are careful in unwrapping the wiring harness, you can remove both the ignition system and the charging system and only have two wires at the firewall to worry about. If you are even more careful, you can remove the pins for the firewall bulkhead connector from the engine side of the connector and install them in your car's bulkhead connector and not have to splice any wires. I have done this on three cars and it has worked beautifully. You will need access to a factory wiring diagram of both vehicles, but this is the best way to go to upgrade to factory elecronic igntion. The dual field alternator swap is an added bonus.

You nailed it: if you splay apart the tape-wrapped harness starting at the EI module end, follow all wires until they terminate. An Aspen will have a 4-pin ballast system, so you'll follow 1 wire to the ballast, two to the distributor plug, one to the coil, and one to power. that way you'll preserve factory connections between the ballast, distributor, and module. The only wire that will disappear into never-never land is the switched power for the system. Cut it as long as you can, install, and then re-wrap your new simplified harness and it will look nearly factory.

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