Technical Mallory Unilite in a Ford FE

I had a Mallory Unilite rebuilt by them and installed it in my 390 Fairlane. Usually I had to crank it forever to get it to start-then it ran fine. A couple of times I ran the battery completely dead without it starting. Other times it started O.K. Should I have used a coil other than the stock Ford. I had a resister in the circuit as directed. I took it out and installed a stock FoMoCo distributer and it starts right off. I'd rather run the Mallory as it looks cooler with the crab top. Thanks. Syl

 

Surely someone can help me!! Syl

 

Run the Ford distributor and send the Mallory back to be checked. If you know the Mallory unit checks out OK, then start your diagnosis on your end. Use what ever components they reccomend. IE: coil, resistor, etc...

 

Century Performance has good Unilite troubleshooting info on their website.
Unilites need a resistor and are fussy about coils erc.
I have had good luck with them on my FEs

 

What did you use for a coil? Syl

 

you need to make sure the distributor gets full twelve volts to function correctly. If your feed the dist after the ballast that could be why you crank so long.

 

I can't see a part number on it, but it it is the round canister style Mallory coil that Mallory recommends.

 

did you add a resistor into the factory power wire to the coil ford cars have one in that wire already

 

I replaced the factory ballast resistor with the Mallory resistor. ....btw I have a 58