[decooney]

houng dog,
the pick up coils in the MSD's do go bad. A friend had an intermittent problem that nobody could solve... turns out the resistance was off on the pick up coil in the distributor. Pulled it out, broke open the pickup coil to see, and the wires were not connected very well and frayed... Yep, that was it!

Bought a new one from Summit for $17 I believe. Popped it in and he had no problems since. I carry a spare now myself just in case. They always seem to get rusty from the moisture in the cap too.