Does the msd ignition replace the coil and is it the end all cure all of an ignition circuit problems?

Answer 1

You can replace the coil with an MSD coil when using an MSD ignition, but you don't have to.

Cure for what? Depends on the problems you were having before. MSD is generally more complicated than stock ignition. I mean it ads more steps between bat/alt and spark, so there is more to fail if anything fails; though they are generally reliable. But it depends on the initial problems. If the problem was low voltage to the ignition coil, slapping an MSD ignition box in between won't work either because it uses the same wire input (which would still be too low if that was never fixed).

If the only problem was the coil or distributor, then yea swapping it for MSD coil and distributor will fix it, but you might as well just replace them with stock parts and forget about the MSD ignition box, unless you want the added performance. In that instance it wouldn't be a cure per say. I mean it will fix the problem, but not because it's MSD, but just because you replaced the faulty parts.

http://www.nls.net/mp/volks/htm/spark.htm

for the MSD 6 series:

http://www.msdignition.com/pdf/6%20series/6series.pdf