I'd like to know a little more about the when and whys of switching to a higher performance ignition system, be it a twinpower amplifier, IGN-1A, etc. As I understand, the real reason folks make the switch is to eliminate ignition break-up under heavy load.

However, I seem to see some people doing it pre-emptively when upgrading other items. I usually take the "I'll buy it when I know I need it" route when upgrading. IE, I'd probably wait until I experience break-up to upgrade.
Is this a bad or dangerous idea? How threatening is an ignition breakup event?

 

People who havent tuned on a jumped up ignition system (which is most people) dont even know if they are limited on the stock ignition or not.

By jumped up ignition, Im not talking about nominal upgrade like a Twin power or LS coils.

My example is I had 2x crane hi 6 and 2x LX92 coils for the leading plugs. Using that best power AFRs were rich past what the wideband could accurately read (richer than 10:1AFRs).

This was on two different tunes on two different turbos (same exact engine and ports though).

First was a highly developed BNR stage 4 60-1 hifi compressor P trim exhaust S5 based tubo with 60mm external WG that maxed out at 16psi, but I pushed to 18psi in midrange.
2nd was same size EFR 7670 that maxed out at 21psi and I pushed to 26psi in the midrange.

Both on 110 unleaded.

Most people find leaning out turbo rotaries adds power, but based on n my experience I believe that is just allowing weak ignition stave off misfires.

 

Installed the ign1a set up yesterday and without ANY changes to my map, it's a brand new car.

example:
Spark blow out with good stock coils same map

then

same map, same wires, same spark plugs, ONLY difference is the coils. Now the car runs as if it was dyno tuned. Straight up, perfect everything. It drives so smooth. As if it was a brand new car.

bear in mind, I've been "working on" the tune on my car for a while now. Anything more than half throttle then it would just break up and the afr would go 9.6 because that's the lowest my wideband reads. But I could half throttle .8 bar all the way to 8500 and it would pull nicely..... or so I thought.

putting these coils on, my car drives like an animal. Idle is better, revving is better, shifts are smoother, pulls are harder, I can actually launch it now. Its straight up a new car.

basically what I'm saying, I thought I needed to just keep pulling fuel in the higher load cells since I thought it was dumping. With these coils, it became apparent that it wasnt dumping fuel but it was blowing out the spark. This could have been a pretty dangerous scenario if I had kept pulling fuel.

if you're considering it, upgrade. It's an incredible change. It's like I've crossed over into a whole new world....

 

old car old coils, some people just need fresh factory coils...

 

Rotary engines LOVE a good strong spark. With a long combustion chamber you need all the spark you can get.

This is a relatively simple no down sides mod. Banzai Racing did a dyno before/after, you can really see the difference and it's all through the rev range -

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...rison-1103125/

The twin power is great on a stock or near-stock car since it's so simple to install and can easily be removed. Going IGN-1A is great but it's someone more involved, not terribly so though. Definitely the more power you make the more spark you need to light it off.

Dale

 

"I'll buy it when I know I need it"

you won't know when you need it if it is a misfire condition.

if you do a dyno run on zero smoothing you will learn whether you need it. zero smoothing shows very small sawtooth data. better described as little "squiggles." you will not repeat not be able to spot this from the driver's seat. generally misfires show up around 400 rwhp assuming everything is top notch..





if you do have a misfire condition you might decrease the plug gap, upgrade to proper plugs (see my website...Tuning/Ignition Section), perhaps lengthen coil dwell, switch to Magnecor plug wires (visit Magnecor site to learn why they should be on your engine), swap in IGN-1A coils, and finally for the cherry on the top add a Kenne Bell Boost A Spark--- 16 Volts to the coils only under boost.

you are right to focus on the ignition... it is all a function of the magnitude of the CCP/ combustion chamber pressure. and the rotary is literally off the charts here...

with the turbo rotary even at 350 rwhp igniting is like driving a nail into a slab of granite. don't believe me?

check out hp per cubic inch:Rear Wheel Power

2018 Corvette ZR1

1.71 cubic inch

2018 Corvette ZO6

1.47

2018 Porsche Turbo S

2.23

2018 McLaren 570S

2.06

2018 Mercedes Benz AMG GT C

1.91

2018 Accura NSX

2.0

Nissan GTR NISMO

2.2

Aston Martin Superleggara

1.91

Ferrari Superfast

1.69

Average Rear Wheel Power per Cubic Inch 1.91

Now that we have a frame of reference let’s take a look at our turbo rotary:

Rear Wheel Power

(Mazda lists displacement at 80 cubic inches. There are a couple of legitimate ways to derive displacement. In order to be conservative I am going to use 160 cubic inches so as to better compare apples to apples.)

1993 Mazda RX7 OE 217 hp 160 cubic inches

1.36

1993 Mazda RX7 350 hp 160 cubic inches

2.19

1993 Mazda RX7 400 hp 160 cubic inches

2.5

1993 Mazda RX7 450 hp 160 cubic inches

2.81

1993 Mazda RX7 500 hp 160 cubic inches

3.13

1993 Mazda RX7 550 hp 160 cubic inches

3.44

1993 Mazda RX7 600 hp 160 cubic inches

3.75

This is profound. A “lowly” 350 rwhp RX7 is within spitting distance of the highest output boosted motors offered for 2018!.......

2.19 V 2.23

understanding this is the key to understanding the need to be so careful as to the care and feeding of the turbo rotary and ignition is certainly near the top of the list.

 

What are your current mods? Stock ignition is pretty much at the limit somewhere around 300whp give or take depending on the freshness of your stock coils.

 

Agreed. I didn't have ignition problems, but put a brand new stock leading coil (waste spark so it fires 2x as often) on my engine when I rebuilt it. Cheap insurance, but in hindsight one should just do all 3.

Another piece to the puzzle is the questionable default Power FC ignition dwell settings (if you're using a PFC).
I've been using FC Tweak to check maps after tuning with good results. In the documentation it talks about the Power FC ignition settings intentionally crippling the stock coils... even vs the stock Mazda ECU.
Just by correctly tuning the PFC settings using FC Tweak one can optimize dwell and increase spark energy output from stock coils without harming lifespan.

 

Is there any info on the effects of boost a spark voltage increase on the lifespan of coils?