I rarely get simple problems to post about. I get the weird ones that test my skills and patience.
This car:
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Has a 440 based 493 with mostly aftermarket stuff on it. It was a 318 model so when I did my first 440 swap to it in 2001, I converted it to the then popular Mopar Performance electronic conversion kit. The distributors they used for this were physically similar to the stock electronic distributors from the outside but had Mallory internals scaled down to fit a Chrysler housing. Smaller advance weights, lighter springs and generally not that great. They get spark scatter, unstable timing and can cause erratic idle issues. I worked though most of that so this one performs okay.
Here is the ongoing issue that I've encountered several times since around 2012, giver or take:
It could be a cold start or a warm restart....I get no spark. None. I touched nothing, I moved nothing, it just started and ran normally moments or days earlier and now it spins and won't fire. Sometimes I've changed the ECM and it starts fine immediately afterwards so I blamed the ECM since we all know the spotty reliability of the Orange box...
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Once I was at the Sacramento Autorama on display and it was the day to take our cars and leave. No spark, no tools, no spare parts. I twisted connections, wiggled wires and cussed a lot. Nothing helped. About an hour of screwing around, then I sat inside and tried again and BOOM, it fired up like normal.
Weeks afterward, a car club member offered to help me rewire the engine side to avoid future NO start issues. It started fine before he worked his magic. Afterwards I had the NO spark again along with some funky headlight door reactions. (That I figured out some 10 years later when I installed the CrackedBack headlight relays!) I gave up and ordered a new harness from Evans.
Randomly over the years, it has happened, almost every time here at home, thank the Lord for that at least. I've tried bypassing the ignition switch with a spare one attached from under the dash. No change, still NO spark.
I've tried Ether/Starting fluid with mixed results. Sometimes it fires up immediately but I wonder if that was just how the damned thing is....maybe the ether spray made no difference and it was going to start when it was ready no matter what.
In 2017 I wanted to weigh the car and I had to get home (In my work truck) in time to get the Charger to the scales. One time it stalled without reason at an intersection and after trying a new coil then ECM, it fired up. The next day, It stalled in my driveway and putting the previous coil back in allowed it to start.
Yeah...It has been musical chairs with parts.
A couple of weeks ago I was tinkering with the A/C and pulled the low pressure switch. The car stalled and shut off. NO spark again. Why? What the heck does the low pressure switch have to do with the ignition wiring? I swapped in another ECM and it started up.
It feels as if I'm on the receiving end of some voodoo curse, like some "force" is watching me and selecting specific parts to conk out and stall the car, then just allowing it to start up again. Yeah, I know that is impossible, it just seems really strange.
I've adjusted the distributor air gap as per the FSM and other publications. .008 set with a brass feeler gage.
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EDIT:
Sometimes it will feel like it wants to start as I turn the key back to LOCK.
