forwardmost coil is arcing betwen the middle terminal and the frontmost outer one.

i assume this means I have to replace the coil.

If i go to a junkyard and pull a coil, is it likely to be bad from sitting out? am i much better off buying a brand new one? can I buy just any aftermaket coil?

thanks.

 

check your distributor.

This was happening to me,

what I found out was, when I accelerated the battery, (no tiedown) slid into the distributor, the rotor made contact with the cap and broke off all the trailing contacts.

The coil would arc below 4000 and the tach was all fucked up.

 

The coil could just need a good cleaning.

 

MSD Blaster 2 ignition coils are reasonably priced at summitracing.com and a nice upgrade from stock. Less ohms resistance, more spark!@