Major voltage drop when black/red wire from relay hooked up. Options

[tornik550]

I am confusing myself. I just installed my fresh 2.7 /6 rebuild. It started up last night and today within a second or so. I pulled a spark plug and I forgot to put it back in and tried to start the car- I immediately stopped and realized my stupid mistake. I put the plug back in and the car started however not as quickly. The car sat for a few hours and I tried to restart it and it didn't work. The starter turns and occasional a cylinder or two fires. I noticed that the voltage gauge was reading at 10volts. I checked my battery and it was fully charged. I started playing around with wires and I found if I remove the red/black wire from te coil- the voltage goes up to 12.8. Also- when the red/black wire from the relay panel is hooked up to the positive side of the coil- I hear an arcing type sound when I turn the key. The fuel pump sounds weak when the car is at 10 volts and therefore I only get about 0.5 psi fuel pressure which I would assume is at least partially why the engine is not firing.

I tried a different coil and there was no change. I do use a pertronix unit.

Any ideas of what might be going on?

[Spoke]

Sounds like the coil is on 100% of the time. Kinda like the Pertronix is not working. If you disconnect the black wire from the pertronix to the coil, does the voltage stay high? It won't fire with the black wire removed but will tell you if pertronix is on all the time.

[tornik550]

Thank you for your help. I think I figured out the issue. I went out and went through the wires again. When making sure everything was tight I noticed the 8mm wire from the coil to the distributor cap looked a little strange. It turns out that the metal piece that goes on the end of the wire had come off so the wire wasn't really touching the coil. There was about 1cm between the connector and the wire- they were both still in the boot though. I had an extra wire so I hooked it up and all seem ok for now.