Ignition quesiton.
 

A buddy I work with builds motors, the chevy 350 being his favorite. Meaning he tears them down and completely does them. I helped get him into a 2002 Interceptor with 60 hours on it. He wants to do a few things for my motor because of this. Mainly just to the heads- port/polish, roller rocker arms, valves. I buy the stuff and he will do the work. (His dads boat has had the same treatment and runs strong with 350+ hours). I have an 04" SC21 with the 4.3 and Alpha drive. He was looking at it and pointed out the me the condition of my ignition coil. It is rusted horribly. The number are hardly legible. (I found out the mercruiser number after a search). I also stumbled upon something that interested me. The motor needs new wires, plugs and distributor in the spring as it is.

Will the MSD ignition coil work with my 4.3? It says marine use in its specs.
MSD Blaster High Vibration Ignition Coils 8222 - SummitRacing.com

Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

Is your 4.3 EFI or carbed? If it's EFI you might run into issues with the ignition module. I ran a accel hipo coil on my 1988 4.3 OMC Cobra setup with no problems. It definately started easier , and seemed to run better with less fuel consumption.
I will be looking at the same for my 4.3 this spring.
Sounds like a good time for some research :)

Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

According to MSDs site it will work as long as you use a .80 ohm ballast resistor before the coil on the positive side. Part # for the ballast is 8214. About 15.00

Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

Thanks diablo, that answers my question to what the ballast was for/or if I needed one. My 4.3 is the throttle body injection. (TKS?) That ignition will be on a list of things to order closer to spring. Still working on a few other projects.

For odd ball purposes, what year Vortec motor would be similar to the one in my boat? I tried searching around to see what years were similar for part compatibility. The distributor, ignition, etc do not appear to be off of the 4.3 GM auto motor in the same year range.
I suppose the serial number on the boat would be ideal to figure this out?

Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

You aren't going to be able to find any of those parts from the automotive version of the 4.3. The marine ignition system is required by the USCG regs to be sealed to prevent accidental fire.
The distributor , starter , carburetor , fuel pump , exhaust system , and even the cooling system & freeze plugs are different.

Freeze plugs? Brass?

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Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

After further inspection, the coil and its connections are rusted so bad I believe the tachometer wire is the cause of my tachometer not working. Ill have to wait till spring to find out I suppose.

If your tach does nothing now and the wiring fixes it, you should be able to see the needle jump to 0 when you turn the key switch on. That may be a little satisfaction to get you by for the winter. :p

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Re: Ignition quesiton.
 

Good to know. Maybe I will put the battery in and check it out.