Can a person hot wire a Msd Distributor

[2ndgear]

In the old days a person could take a jumper wire and take one clip and go to the pos. side of the battery and the other clip would go to the coil. Then you would short across the solenoid with a screw driver or what ever and the engine would turn over until it would start. I am wondering if you can hot wire a MSD with a 6AL box and a MSD distributor. I am asking in regards to a person stealing a car or does a person have to put in a toggle switch in line with the MSD box. Thanks in advance.

[Hemi Joel]

It's a peice of cake. Just run a jumper wire from 12v+ to the small red wire on the msd, jump the solenoid and voila! It starts!

[2ndgear]

So a person would have to bare the small red wire and not brake the connection. The wire is a one piece on the MSD box  and needs to be stripped to do the job. A little more tougher of a job then just taking a wire and going to the coil.  Amatures would most likely still use the jumper wire from  pos. to coil and jump the solenoid and it would not start? But I guess if you are going to steal a car with MSD you should know what you are doing? What would be a good fool proof system with a MSD box to use for the thieves can not steal the car.

[Heo]

Replace the high tension cord from the coil to
the dist with a vacum hoose when you leave
the car or remove the rotor or both.  take a while
for the thief to find that out

[fryedaddy]

i have a hidden safety cutoff switch that i flip when i get out of my car.they would never find it in a short period of time

[The Real McCoy]

I may be the only guy on this site that is unfamiliar with the MSD system but I will share what I did with my Pertronix III distributor.  I think you can do the same on an MSD and expect others will join in if I am wrong.

Pertronix recommends using a slave relay to apply a full 12 VDC to the Ignitor III coil and distributor rather than the resistance wire being the power source.  I added this slave relay. which the ignition switch is used to provide power to the relay coil to pull the relay in,  but, I wired the relay contacts a little differently than what was recommended.  There is a little bit of risk involved in how it is wired.

The common terminal goes to the coil to power the coil and distributor.

The normally open terminal is a fused wire connected directly to the battery.  It will provide battery voltage to the common terminal when the relay is energized.

The normally closed terminal is connected directly to ground.  It will provide a ground for the common terminal when the relay is de-energized.

During normal operation via the ignition switch pulling in the relay the normally open terminal supplies battery voltage to the common terminal and the engine will start and run. When the ignition switch is turned off and the relay drops out the common terminal loses it's battery voltage from the normally open terminal and is then connected to the normally closed terminal, which is ground, so the engine stops.

When the thief comes along with the intent of hot wiring the car and driving away the relay is de-energized, common to normally closed, when he connects the jumper wire from the battery to the coil terminal sparks will start to fly because it is connected to the coil but is also going directly to ground through the normally closed terminal of the relay . Instead of "hot wiring" the car he will actually "HOT wire" the car.

Remember I said there is some risk involved, he probably will not get the car but he might burn it down....