For years I have been defending MSD. I've used their products in over 2 dozen vehicles with no significant problems. Today that changed. Sorry in advance for the length of my story.
It was a beautiful day in PA. 75 degrees, no humidity and sunny skies. My wife said she wanted to take her first ride in the cobra and we should drive to this English pub about 25 miles from home for brunch. It is a great drive through the rolling hills and twisty roads of horse country in Chester county. We were about 5 miles from home, still on the main road when I made a right turn and the car started bucking, backfiring, and stalled. I coasted into a Comfort Inn parking lot.
My car has about 200 miles on it and was just registered. Brand new Ford Racing 427w with a 750 Holley, Performer RPM air gap, MSD distributor, coil, and box. The blaster 2 coil (non-vibration model) is mounted to the front of the head with a 1 " spacer and is painted black and yellow as you can see below:
I checked the fuel and carb, fine. The spark test worked fine, distributor rotor turned, and all connections were good, so I let the engine cool for a a few minutes and it started, but ran poorly eventually stalling. Symptoms were a bad coil, but I left my box of spare parts on the workbench as I removed them yesterday to put them in a small padded bag to carry them in and forgot it as we were leaving. Fortunately, there was a Pep Boys about two miles down the street with a speed shop. The one nice thing about breaking down in your cobra is that everyone wants to help and this guy from the hotel took me down and back. I bought a new black high vibration MSD coil and a mag pickup just in case. Swapped out the coil and it started right up, but we drove back home and got the DD and only lost an hour.
Bad coil with only 200 miles??? Could painting it cause a problem? Heat from the head? I've used this same set up on several cars with no problems. Has MSD quality really gotten this bad? Anyway, definitely a case for carrying spare parts and the right tools. I'm kind of bummed that my wife's first time in the car was not a good one and while I may have lost a corner of the man card for using the word "brunch" above, my wife now thinks I am a genius for fixing the problem so quickly!