making odd ignition parts work together

What I have here is a duraspark distributor, and a Judson coil. On the bench with a Om meter when I spin the dizzy I get no signal. When I touch a flat screwdriver blade to the pick up I can make/break the circuit. Based on this information I find the yellow (orange?) wire to be positive, BLK/BLU to be pick up ground, and BLK to be dist ground. With stuff wired up as shown in the pix I don't get spark out to the plug. Anyone care to point out the mistake in my feeble logic?

 

Bump for the evening crew... GMC Bubba maybe? Making this work, and a gallon of gas is all I need to fire it up

 

i believe you need an ignition module to make that work.

 

Yes I am sure it does. The Judson is just a coil.

 

Duraspark box is needed.
But there are work arounds for a GM hei module.
http://www.fordmuscleforums.com/ign...y-trick-hei-module-inside-duraspark-case.html

 

The reason that I think that this should work is that I'v had an (ot) magnetic trigger distributor firing a Judson coil for years in the sport car. The tech is basicly the same, but the OT unit only has 2 wires from the trigger. True... all the books that I have only show the duraspark plugging directly into the spark box. But shouldn't a magnetic pick up perform the same job as a set of ponts? It opens the circuit and the field in the coil collapses resulting in spark. Could it be that I need to power up the pick up in some way?

 

Are you sure there's no amplifier (ignitor) in the distributor?

The magnetic pickup's signal is way too weak to trigger an ignition coil.

 

There's no way a magnetic pickup can fire a coil. A module of some sort is definitely required

 

YUP, the duraspark box acts like a relay to take the little signal from the pickup and trigger a transistor that actually handles the current that the coil takes.

Duraspark boxes are bulletproof and not real big. A very good ignition.

 

well... I guess you have hit on it. shoot!

 

Nope , wont work without a control module and then may not work with the Judson ( most of the Judson were positive ground).
The duraspark is a magnetic pulse generator and produces a sine wave signal based on a moving magnetic fields. Its one of the better ones out there and is a signal generator only.
The output voltage is approx .250 to 1.00 volts while cranking, this electrical signal is hooked to a control module and the the control module turns the ignition coil on and off providing spark for the secondary ignition of the coil.

The Judson ignition coil is a capacitive discharge transistorized coil that was built to make the primary ignition voltage to be higher than normal feeding the ignition coil allowing stronger secondary output.