I guess I was wrong about 6 degrees. I just took the car out an it wouldn't stop dying, The only difference is it's night and it's colder. I pulled it over and nudged the distributor a bit, which came out to 10 degrees, and it runs fine. Although it feels more sluggish than before this problem. I'll probably have to mess with this for a little while.
You guys must be contortionists. With factory pulley setup, my Comet is very difficult to see timing marks. That said, a change of two, three, four or even five degrees timing will not cause major issues like stalling, poor idle etc. No doubt there are other issues.
I've adjusted the timing from 6-14 degrees and I'm not really getting anywhere. Overall it idles rough, and drives rough below 25mph. It's fine once I get it over that speed. When I give it a small amount of gas, the timing retards about 2 degrees, and then advances once I start giving it some more gas. I also noticed occasionally at idle the timing jitters up an down by a degree. My best guess is that the new pickup is not working well. The last one rested right up against the reluctor, and this one has a rather large gap. Something around 1mm. I can see no way to adjust it. I'm going to send the old pickup coil to my dad to see if he can reattach the wire. He does electronics professionally. Once this part failed, my car when from driving great to barely running. The MSD kit is looking more attractive.
Pretty obvious that you don't have the dist stabbed correctly. If the pickup coil was bad, it wouldn't run at all. With the number one piston at top dead center on compression stroke, the rotor should point to number one terminal, which would also be pointing toward number 8 cylinder. Anywhere from 6 to 14 degrees of advance should run good.
Just a thought, I wonder if the timing chain has jumped as they are very prone to going bad. I would want to pull the valve cover and confirm that both intake and exhaust valves are closed when pointing at #1
Have you thought about adjusting idle mixture on carb? Far more often than not, that's the source of idle issues and hesitation at tip in.
I would try that only after making certain that the timing is correct, which I'm not convinced it is, based on his description of what he did.
Other than the coil issues; I am beginning to think you might have a timing chain issue. I can't see how coil/electric issue will cause timing to jump around.
I bought a rebuild distributor and swapped out the pickup coil and reluctor, and the problem is solved. It feels like it has a decent amount more power now. It spins the tires easily when I give it some gas. With the previous coil I had to turn the distributor a lot to get it the timing right. About an 1/8 of a turn. Now it's back around where it previously was.
Hate to hijack someone else's thread, but its over a year old, so lets go for it. My car only runs with key on start. I went from point to Draspark II. I used the brown wire to feed the coil. In the pic above, it shows new hot ran to the coil for a full 12V. I see that is for a high performance coil? Is that what DuraSpark II uses? I am NOT using the coil form the 6cyl or points. I am NOT using the coil form the truck the motor came out of, since it has a chip out of the coil plug top. I got a new coil to use from AutoZone. I told them duraspark 2 so I hope its the right coil. Thanks again. And tumbler, sorry about the hijack.
I terminal on solenoid ONLY supplies voltage while cranking. I'm supposed to have a wiring diagram for a '80 Mustang(apparently AWOL, sending out search patrol), should be same as '79. AFAIK the D-II systems were standard fare beginning '77 & all basically alike. I believe they do use a resistor to feed module. The original points resistor in harness should work BUT the coil receives a direct 12V.
