Ignition, light my fire!!
 

I've been thinking of upgrading my ignition in conjunction with adding an AI system to my car over the winter.

I'm currently running stock FC coils with 8mm Taylor wires and 9's all around. Haltech E6X for EMS and its in an '87 TII.

I'll be spraying a 50/50 mix of water/meth through a 630ml/min nozzle (slightly larger then an M10, yes?) So nothing drastic, but AI nonetheless.

I know the FC coils are durable, but they're also aging at this point despite my car's low mileage. I have considered LS1 coils by themselves as they're readily available etc. but don't know if they are considered an upgrade in any other apsect aside from them being new. (meaning are they actually stonger then FC coils? or are they just more reliable because they're new?)

It boils down to: I want a stronger then stock, reliable ignition system that will provide enough juice to light the swish I'm spraying at it. What's needed? CDI + stock coils? New coils? New aftermarket (ie. MSD LS1 coils)?

Enlighten and discuss please.

Thanks in advance.

Most likely your stock setup will light it up with no problems. How much boost are you planning on running?

18-20 psi on a GT-3574 (basically maxing it out efficiency wise)

I realize the stock setup *will* work, but what might work better and more reliably then my 20y/o coil packs?

You can have a full set of delphi Ls2 coils harness and plug wires to suit for about 135$

:scratch: Where from?

Thanks

Ebay http://motors.search.ebay.com/d514a_W0QQfromZR40 about 20 dollars per coil

Your local Gm deal should have the bracket and harness in stock for about 20 dollars each (you really don't need the bracket, it makes more sense to make your own:
better to have the coils: C C rather than C C C C
better to have the coils: C C
Then call magnecore and order a set of crimp on spark plug ends for Ls2 coils and new boots and use them on your existing plug wires.

Nice, and these coils themselves in conjunction with adjustable dwell via the Haltech will be more powerful then the OEM coils?

I have no proof, but many people think so as do I.

The stock ignition will not work. My car was sent for tuning with Steve Kan a couple weeks back. Pretty much the same setup you have. 9's spark plug, A-spec GT3574, stock ignition and spraying 100% methanol.

Very bad ignition break-ups. Steve told me to upgrade and boost the front coils. He showed me how bad the break-up was on the dyno graphs. This was with methanol at about 18psi. Then he tune for 14psi w/o methanol and there was break-ups too.

I always thought the stock ignition was strong, but after seeing what I saw, an ignition upgrade is a must.

Did you upgrade? And it fixed the problem? Or is that just what he told you to do?

Thanks, what kind of power were you putting down and what kind of coils? FC? FD?

My ignition was stock at that time, and yeah Steve told me it wasn't going to make it even before the tune. During the tune he confirmed that the ignition wasn't enough to burn the fuel on the upper ends.

My car's a FC. Tune was unfortunately cut short and incomplete due to an unfortunate event that happened on the dyno. It was making around 300whp at 14psi in its last few pulls. That was without a fine tune and with ignition break-ups.

I'll be upgrading my ignition to MSD coils and a MSD box for the leading plugs. Steve told me the leading ones are the ones that need it. The trailing ones I can leave it stock.

I've yet to confirm that this will solve the breakups on a dyno yet as the car needs a new engine now :wallbash: but if this doesn't solve the break-ups, I don't know what else will.

My ignition is stock except for a Twin Power and 11.5 range pluge and I had no problems lighting up my pump gas and 100% meth at 22 psi. Steve tuned my car as well. I never get any break up. Maybe the twin power makes that much difference, but i kind of doubt it.

Well it sure better do something for $400!! :rofl:

I'm thinking of just going the proven route and adding an MSD 6A. Might even throw on a pair of boosted MSD LS1 coils for the leading. Having too much spark won't hurt me thats for sure :)

Any other thoughts?

EDIT: Zinx, how much meth are you spraying? And to me, 100% is FAR easier to light up then 50/50 meth/water.......

I can't remember the exact nozzle size, but i think i have an M8 and M12 with a line pressure of 150 psi. Its quite a bit of meth.

There is a summit racing digital CDI for like 120 bucks, with avertised specs as good as the basic MSD digital boxes:
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

Interesting....Thanks slo!

zinx - what specific plugs are you running that are 11.5 heat range?

Also, any thoughts on these for coils?

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

Sorry, they are not 11.5s, just 11s. B11EGV.

These?

http://www.sparkplugs.com/results_cross.asp?pid=b11egv

Yes, you'll need a thin walled socket to install them. Only take a few minutes on a bench grinder to make one.

*Excellent* ----> ""Mr. Burns style""

Classicauto

Did you ever get a ignition upgrade?

Ian

Yeah, I'm going to boost the stock leading coil with an MSD 6A for now and see what that gets me.

I'm also heavily contemplating running 100% meth since it should be easier to light, and for my purposes it should get the job done. I'm only injecting a "little" so to speak, compared to some anyways, while trying to just lower the intake temps a little, and reduce knock. Just add a little saftey to it thats all.

I'm also thinking, running 50/50 or 70/30 etc, my mixes would be off slightly every time, unless I go to some pretty long lengths to ensure accuracy, so running 100% would be repeatable, and consistent.

I called Jackson Motorsports a distributer for FJO racing products and told them I would like to run the FJO methanol kit but don't have the money for the Autronic 500r and he questioned my reasoning to getting a CDI ignition upgrade. He figures I don't need it. That really I would not be injecting enough to warrant a CDI upgrade.

I know I don't need the 500r per say but I would rather just get the best since I tend to buy a lesser component and upgrade later. Besides the 500r is dual capacitance and can run trailing and leading all in on box.

I guess you can do launch control with your ignition box?

Nahm, the 6A is very basic. Just boosts the spark a little, no extra features.

I was going to get a 6AL but most of what it can do, the Haltech can (if I wanted the features that is....two step, soft cut rev limiter etc.) so I just went for what I figured I'd need.

I just know the MSD units are used very widely, and they seem to get the job done so I'll give it a shot.

You may not *need* it like they say, but I don't really *need* alot of shit I have on my car, I just like playing around lol

With a 6A here's a trick that will improve the performance a bit.

The first gen guys figured out that you can wire 2 stock coils in paralell.

It of course haves the resistance increasing the power, but not beyond what the 6a can handle, as many of the performance coils have very low resistance, lower even than 2 stock coils in series.

If you use 2 trail coils you can mount them both to the stock lead ignitor with some small spacers between them.

This also gives you better performance because it gets you out of single coil wasted spark, as there is only one spark gap for each spark to jump.

Intersting.

So your basically saying, run another set of trailing (individual coils/1 post per coil) coils without their ignitors, using the single ignitor from the original leading coil....with the MSD wired in between?

yeah thats what I'm saying.

The first gen guys figured this out a long time ago as an extension to the dual igniter system. Its a way to run distributerless ignition (lead only) on a first gen without an ecu.

When I had a 1g I had planned to do this, and called MSD to confirm it wouldn't hurt the box. The engineer told me that it would probably run a whole rail of coils.

The stock lead coil is really a single coil, like the trail coil, that has two outputs. Off hand I believe that the outputs are in series but it doesn't really matter how they are. When the stock coil fires the spark has to jump 2 gaps. Using two coils, still has the spark as a waste spark, but it only has to jump one gap.

The MSD can't tell the difference between 1 and 2 coils, all it can see is resistance, and current draw of the coil.

Just to make sure I'm not giving you bad advice, I called MSD tech support (5 min ago) and they said: "Is this a mazda RX7, yeah no problem people do that all the time" and that the coils will just draw as much current as they can and there is no issue with coil resistance, also he said that it will produce as much power out of one coil as it will out of 2, and there would be no advantage to having one msd box per coil.

True. I don't need alot of thing but manage to do it anyhow. I just bought the FJO kit today so I will be running it for sure this year. Without upgraded igntion. Just going to run good plugs and good wires.

Hope BDC can tune AI.

I came across this page, with a wiring diagram.

Has anyone noticed that they have the Leading and Trailing coil labeled on there, I think they are talking 0 split with that drawing

Yes but you don't need to do it like that, I was suggesting using 2 coils in series both for leading.

lol, I feel silly but this thread has done me well.

However, I currently don't have a use for the info as I went balls to the wall on my ignition setup:


https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1204555429

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1204555429

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1204555429

Jacob's pro street amps, and Jacob's coils, 10mm magnecor wires, stock ingitor.

I did something similar, but I used the 120 dollar summit boxes (x2) with a pair or accell super coils that have been in my garage forever.

I mounted them in the front bumper core.

Questions: what cylinder select settings does the Jacobs have (8cyl, 6cyl etc)?

Also what are the input types?

My guess is that like the MSD digital 6 and even the cheapo summit box I have its designed for 4,6 and 8 cylinder engines with distributors.


Which means that if you have it in 4 cylinder mode and run discrete channels to the lead coils, the box will see and use for its multi spark calculations exactly half of the true RPM.

hmmm, good qeustion but I'd have to check and I'll look tonite.

IIRC there's only a rev limiting switch on the amps.....I don't recall any cylinder # settings....

Hopefully Jacob's answers this email lol

It has to have a cyl select, because its method of sensing RPM for rev limiting and for multi spark calculation is through its own triggering input.

If it doesn't have cyl select then it can only work in one configuration

it was suggested to me by a senior Jacobs tech guy to keep the amps separated by at least six inches... all wires to and from the amps should be shielded. i really like my Jacobs amps. in addition to putting out lots they have a circuit that senses acceleration and goes to full power. if you don't have such a throttle down around town circuit you end up frying your plugs very quickly. my ignition fired my pump/methanol cleanly at 9.0 AFR. (of course i don't know why i was running that rich but have since leaned it out)...

as far as the rev limiter wires. (there are 2 loops on my amp) you need to cut one of the loops and it will count revs properly for a 2 rotor. i have my rev limiter turned off so it doen's make much diff.


http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/733/p1000696ba8.jpg


my leading coils. MSD 8253. perhaps my ignition is overkill but it takes that factor out of the equation. i will be interested to learn how a single MSD 6A functions as it would be an easy mod.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9356/p1000690to3.jpg

hc

Hmm, six inches eh? I guess I may have to rethink mounting solutions....

Thanks for the tip Howard...

The separation shouldn't matter if they are firing off the same signal at the same time.

Sorry to semi bring this back from the dead. I too am getting my ignition all setup, and I was wondering if it is required to get two ignition boxes like Howard Coleman and classicauto have done? I have an FC I will be running a little meth in to cool and have a little extra safety margin, and would like to make sure I don't have any ignition breakup when Steve Kan tunes it this summer.

Thanks
~Tweak

One on the leading is probably good enough, especially if you run a good dual coil or a pair of coils in parallel as is shown further up.

I'd like to note that one of the Jacob's amps crapped out in short order while idling. I'm currently running stock coils for the moment but will be installing the MSD 6A I bought at the onset of the thread.

I am sorry to hear that your Jacobs died, I was thinking about snagging a little FC1000, but I guess I will pass. I was thinking about getting the super high 1,200 Millijoules Crane Cams ignition boxes, I have access to an MSD 6a also, so I think I will grab that. Also I didn't get much feedback when I searched for Crane on the forums.

Are you going to be using one or two boxes, and are you going to do the stock coils in parallel trick, because I think I would like too, but I don't quite understand what is going on with that.

Could someone maybe throw up a little mspaint diagram to give a little example of the parallel trick? Is it just two coils plugged in, but only one spark going out?

Thanks
~Tweak

When I get around to the MSD 6A I'll be boosting the leading coil only using a single MSD 6a box, wired as per slo's MSD diagram on post #31

Ok, I don't know much about our cars ignition system, I definitely need to read up on how it works. I was a little confused on how it said, leading and trailing, but I think I got it all figured out now.

Thanks
~Tweak

BIG Correction on the above diagram, it should say leading coil number one, leading coil number 2. not leading/trailing if you hook it up with dual post coils like that you will blow your engine up

Use this instead

The original pic is clearly designed for a car with a distributor, but it shows that MSD themselves endorse hooking their box up in parallel to 2 coils which is what I wanted to show.

Good to know thanks. :D

I am thinking about getting 4 of these so I can fun full sequential ignition.


http://stores.bmepefistore.com/Detail.bok?no=11

"These BMEP EFI High Output DIS coil feature a built-in transistorized ignitor, perfect for use with OEM and other aftermarket ignition systems that don't have high current coil drivers and must otherwise rely on an external Power Stage (Ignitor) or CDI. For example, many OEM Motronic systems have very low current, high side coil drivers that must be used with an ignitor, these external ignitors are unreliable and limit current to the coil. Also, some systems like the Haltech or AEM EMS use these same, low amperage drivers which often requires a $1k CDI box to even use the system with a conventional coil. BMEP EFI High Output DIS coils with built in transistorized driver allow a high current, 20 Amp driver to be integrated with one of the most powerful coils on the market, giving over 60k-100k Volts of spark energy w/o any other ignition boxes or components. "

From what reviews I have read from people that have used them, it will ignite anything, and they didn't use a CDI box.

What do you guys think? Anybody seen/used them here?

Thanks
~Tweak

transistorized driver=ignitor

What they are describing is an integrated coil and ignitor like LS1 coils, as opposed to coils with separate ignitors, like stock.

Their clams are BS:

"external ignitors are unreliable and limit current to the coil"

nope...

I am willing to bet that what they are selling is LS1 coils.

Dang it, right when I think I find the perfect solution ... it's always too good to be true. :(