Well after scratching my head alot and reading about 4 different installs.. i finally got my second gen direct fire system installed.. i would like to thank jeff20b and metallic_rock for their help. II got kinda confused because i have a 79 and i was going from a points to an electric dizzy first then converting everything to direct fire... i had a few things messin me up like which ignitor was the leading and which one is the trailing.. but i got it all straight and now my baby starts like a dream... idles great too.. no more sputtering.. so i have everything kinda jimmy rigged right now.. but i will go back in on payday and rewire everything and solder the connections.. i will take pics of that whole process too for the others like me that need lots of visuals...

so if anyone has and questions let me know..

 

Good to hear. And I give kudos to jeff20b and metallic_rock too. Jeff has answered every one of my ignition questions in more detail that I asked for, and stimulated some thinking on my part (a good thing). metallic_rock promptly answered my PMs asking for help when I did this last year and provided a great writeup on the procedure.

 

(and I don't even own a 1st gen... yet). Hey, be sure to check out the transistor trick thread for 2GCDFIS. The more who see it, the more ideas will come in.

 

i did have a question.. i read somewhere that the tach doesnt work with this setup.. i didnt chack mine i was just trying to get it running.. if not how do i connect my tach?

 

That's news to me. Hook the tach wire to the – (negative) terminal of your trailing coil. It senses the 12V square wave output of the ignitor and moves the needle accordingly. It is factory adjusted for two pulses per revolution just like a typical 4 cylinder tach. If you ever get an aftermarket tach, set it to 4 cyl mode.

The reason why the tach is on the trailing coil is because you'd never know if the trailing ignitor ever dies since it does so little for power (especially on an NA). This gives you visual confirmation that at least the ignitor is working. Since the '80 model had semi-firing trailing for the thermal reactor (to supply it with a steady diet of hydrocarbons to keep the fire lit inside to help clean the emissions), they hooked the tach to the leading coil on those cars. I assume the '79 also had semi firing trailing because it also had a thermal reactor. A nice thing about leading direct fire is the extra spark which fires 180° later in the cycle and can help in cleaning emissions along with the other benefits of better ignition and a carb that doesn't have to be jetted as richly, which tends to help increase power and gas mileage.

There I go again answering questions in greater detail than asked for.

 

okay.. see i think i used my leading coil as my trailing coil.. lol... do you happen to know the color of the tach wire?

 

Yellow with a green tracer. That's just a guess.

 

i will have to look it up i guess..
where is metallic_rock when i need him