Not sure if I understand the question. If the dist you have is a HEI, and has three wires coming out of the underside, these should be in a plastic plug. This plug, then plugs into the receptacal that houses the coil.( Plugs in closest to the cap) The three wires are for the coil, one of them is a ground and the other two, go to the coil itself. A fourth heavy wire (hot when the key is on) goes into one of the remaining plugs, (I think it is molded in the cap cover which is which,) the fifth one will be a tach wire, (it provides a pulse for the tach, which then reads it as engine rpm) So I guess the short answer is, yes they have to be hooked up. I have diagrams of this stuff somewhere, the trick will be finding them. If your still stuck, or I understood this all wrong give me a shout, and I'll hunt it up for you. Sniper