Howdy, I recently took off a friends hands a 82 that had been previouse used for racing. It currently doesn't run and I'm trying to change that. Its the 12a and it looks as though most non-mission critical stuff has been removed (A/C, etc..). It's outfitted with a MSD 6a ignition with two blaster coils hooked to the leading plugs and the stock coil to the distributer to the trailing plugs. The engine cranks just fine, but never really fires. Sometimes I'll get about one pop, but never even a slight run time. I can see that the nikki carb is definitly dumping gas to the engine, so I'm thinking it may be an ignition problem. I'm pretty new to this wankel stuff so if there's anything immeadiatly different in starting and tuning a rotary I would be pleased in knowing. Or if anyone has any ideas of things to check for. I also have no idea how a MSD ingition hooks up so if there's something to look for there It would be cool to know. Thanks for any help!

Joe

 

First check to see if you have spark to the plugs. Do you know How to do that?

 

I have a feeling that your trailing ignition may be working but not the leading, that would explain the occasional pop you described but wouldnt start the car. I would recommend that you read a bit about the msd box and then make sure everything is working properly. It could be a larger problem but I have a feeling the problem can be traced back to the ignition. Good luck.

 

Hmm, sure enough. Trailing seem to be working, but nothing to the leading. Does anybody know how this MSD is supposed to be connected. It seems weird that the two coils for the leading plugs are hooked together in parallel...how do they know when to fire? I'll look more into that, thats guys.

 

That's called a waste spark setup. The leadings fire at the same time... All 2nd and 3rd gens have it.

One rotor is right at the power phase of it's rotation, the other is partway through the exhaust phase.

I believe MSD has hookup diagrams and user's guides or manuals downloadable from their site.

I'd also drop back to stock config, just to see if the previous owner didn't botch the wiring.

I'm leaning towards a blown ignitor or a bad magnetic pickup... Ignitors are the black matchbox sized dealies on the side of the dizzy. There's two of em. They're labeled J109 and have a Mitsubishi symbol on em. They convert the low level signal from the mag pickups to a high level power to fire the coils.

Mag pickups are inside the distributor. once you remove the ignitors you'll be able to remove these. They're white. You have to remove the cap, rotor, and the little metal plate inside the dizzy.

There's a 4 pointed wheel that spins by the mag pickups. Test em by passing a lightly magnetized screwdriver past them (Like the 4 pointed wheel would do when the car is running.) You should get spark if you have a known good ignitor and coils.

 

this might just be a simple timing issue try setting the timing to the exact setting