ICM failed suddenly on aftermarket distributor on 2.8. Replaced with new BWD ICM. When I pulled cap off, the pickup coil pigtail wire was crushed flat as it looped outside and then back inside cap. Car has been like this for 7 years and 10000 miles.
I used a diamond based thermal transfer grease for high end CPUs. Coated entire underside metal of module and around screw holes. And I did not make the coating as thin as possible. I mention this because I am now having drivability problems. Over the past few days, I can feel an increasing miss under load and anything other than steady hwy speeds. Today I punched it and got only mild acceleration. Still idles as before. I have a MSD upgrade coil and cap( brass contacts) and Taylor 8.8 wires.
Car ran strong until the sudden death of the previous ICM.
Could the pigtail wire be the issue and if so can just the pigtail (pickup coil wire) be replaced?
Could the thermal paste flowed into the screw holes and compromised the grounding of the ICM to the distributor?
Can either of these be checked while the parts are still on the car. If so, then how?
Any thoughts, suggestions?

You can test the pickup coil on the car, but you must dis-assemble the distributor to change the pickup coil. The wires are integral. Your new ICM is probably not as good as the earlier one....sorry to say many of them are defective out of the box.

[This message has been edited by Gall757 (edited 03-25-2014).]