Ignition system begun

This week, I accomplished mounting the ignition coil to the engine block and connecting it to the distributor. This was not so easy a task as you might think. Most guys attach the coil to the front of the driver side engine heads. In my case, I already had the power steering pump using those bolt holes with the special mounting plate I had Jerry build for me a couple of years ago. There is just one big cable running from the coil to the distributor, and it would not have been a huge deal to locate it far away, but I did not have a cable long enough and did not want to spend any more money than necessary. And besides, it seems like such a natural place to put the coil right on the front of the engine.

I tried lots of ways of reusing the holes that were on Jerry's plate. There were 3 holes with bolts holding the plate and PS pump in place. Normally guys would use the outside ones, but that was impossible for me. And using the 2 inside holes was close to fitting, but just a little too close. Eventually, I widened the coil bracket holes, changed the angles of the bracket a bit, shortened the bolt that closes the coil bracket loop a couple of times and used a bit of oil to lube the outside of the coil just enough to squeeze it into the bracket. It even required a special precise installation order to get everything to clear all of the bolts in the area. Of course, this was only determined by trial and many errors!

Here are a few of the finished pics...





Next, there are a couple of signal wires that run from the ignition box to the distributor and a couple of power wires that run from the ignition box to the ignition coil. So I had to decide where/how to install the ignition box. Most people put it on top of the passenger side footbox. So I spent a lot of time browsing the pictures of every finished Hurricane and every Cobra replica up for sale on the main website where they are sold, Cobra Country. I am pretty sure how I want to run things and that I will indeed put the MSD ignition brain on the PS footbox, but it got too hot and too short on time this week to finish that job.