OK maybe I'm a little thick, but here it is. By having the orange and black wires from the MSD hooked to the coil along with a yellow and white from the harness I was trying to run a mix of two ignition systems. Now follow me closely...the small red wire from the MSD (ignition hot wire) was connected to the "I" side of the relay along with a yellow wire (maybe the same yellow as went to the coil). This appeared to be hot all the time the switch was on. However it was the white wire that went from the ignition switch to (I suppose) the coil that the red MSD ignition hot wire should have replaced. Removed the ignition switch, removed the white wire and replaced it with the red MSD wire, taped the ends of the wires at the coil, and the engine fired the first time! Apparently as wired before the engine would fire off the yellow wire from the relay but as soon as I released the switch the engine would cut off because it was the ignition hot terminal that needed to be connected and not just a hot wire. Jack21, pretty good ole buddy,spot on, but a special thank you to Alan Weaver for helping me get my colors straight
h dog