[j-gregs]

I recently replaced my water pump and diverter plates since I had always had overheating problems and I had read so many threads on here about improved cooling. While I was waiting for the gasket to set up I was observing some of the wiring I had done several years ago. I noticed this nice job under a wad of electrical tape.


This was then plugged into a ballast resistor, which then feeds to my coil. I clipped and sliced the wires and then made a nice connection to the resistor. So after the water pump is back together I start the car and it seems to run fine, but it starts missing real bad under light throttle. It seems fine if you punch it, but definitely something is up with the ignition system. It runs like my old 97 Jetta after a rain storm. Definitely coil problems and missing. After a short drive I checked under the hood again and the ballast resistor was pretty damn hot. After reading up I realize that I spliced the calibrated resistance wire. My understanding is that it supplies 12 volts to the coil during cranking, then switches to like 6- volts? I took a look at it and it looks like one wire is copper and the other is something else (tungsten or something). I also realized that the wire I used was from West Marine since my local hardware store and radio shack were out of stock and I'm pretty sure it's stainless (def not copper). So will I need to slice the original crusty wire back together, it looked pretty tired and dry rotted? If I just replace the stupid marine grade with 14-16 awg copper wire would that help? Does anyone know where to get a new calibrated resistance wire? How should I check to voltage to the coil? My set up is:

400 ci (originally 326 all wiring for 326 2brl)
MSD blaster 2 coil
I think the MSD ballast resistor 0.8 ohms (PN 8214), but I'm not 100%
Mallory Unilite Series 47 with vacuum advance
Accel 8.8 wires
Regular spark plugs. I think R45s


Here's the resistor:


And the leads going to the coil and distr.


It's always 1 step forward two giant steps back with me. At least it seems to be running cooler, pretty soon it might not be running at all.