AEM C2DI Ignition update
 

So, the new product is out and I'm sending mine off to get replaced tonight. The turnaround is supposed to be quick and to facilitate that, I'm sending it off so it gets there tomorrow. Unfortunately that means that I'll be sending it same day as I'm going to end up missing the pick up tonight.

To refresh, this is supposed to be the fix all to all the issues that they've been having.

I know that a lot of you have had issues with this. I have as well, but I paid for this already, so I'm going to get my $$ worth and get this replacement under warranty. Hopefully this will live up to what they say it will.

If you have a defective unit, call them up and they'll issue you an RMA. Send it off and they say they'll return the new one next day.

I spoke to Justin at AEM today and he assured me that they were ready to delivery on all their outstanding warranty claims. I sent mine back in early Feb and am still waiting for the replacement to arrive . . .

Speak to Jason K(something or other) in warranty. I got mine back today. I shipped it Tuesday night (overnight) and hounded them. It's supposed to be the new version. The S/N seems to be in a similar series. My original ended in the 400s and this one is 1029. Both prefixes are identical. I didn't notice any other markings that would diffrentiate(sp) the two. Physically it's the same thing. I hadn't noticed before whether there were two screws on one of the sides along the cooling fins, but this one does. I have another older model there that I was borrowing and will take a closer look.

Hope this works.

Well, don't hold your breath.
 

Well, now I'm pissed. This is all based on the fact that I supposedly have received the "new" version of this product.

I installed it with the same settings I had before; on, off, on. Fired right up and would periodically die on idle. Over and over and over and...

So I was looking at the thing and noticed this. The LED indicator would occasionally miss, meaning that the led would go out for a split second then continue on its way. Other times, I'd see it get really bright all of a sudden, for that same split second, then normal. This was seemingly random. Keep in mind, I've had the same tune since I've had my original one. My wiring is in good shape. Good grounds as well.

So, frustrated by this, I decided to set the multiple discharge to off. Well, it seemed to idle a little smoother and the LED was more consistant and it didn't die. Ok, cool. Shouldn't be an issue. So off on a little shake down run I went. During light cruising (very light throttle) it missed every now and then. Seemed pretty consistant though in that it would do it randomly, but at least once or twice a minute.

So on to the high way. A little full throttle and it seems like it's missing a bit at 4-5k (which never did before, so I attributed it to the multi spark being off) but smoothed out a little after. Wound it up then brought it down a little. To test that out again, wound it up to the top of third or so and GUESS WHAT?!? IT COMPLETELY DIED A G A I N! Why, you ask? FUSE POPPED AGAIN!

So I've given them a week to give me a damn answer on what the hell's going on else I want a refund for this POS. What a waste of damn time.

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You gotta be kidding me. A guy that works there has one. And they said they didn't have a rotary to TEST WITH?

WTF!

I highly doubt that they are going to 1) have a rotary only version or 2) do another revision for this small of a customer base. I'm done with them (unless they give me one helluva incentive).

I have one for my 20b, no way in hell i want to mess up this motor, what are our options for other ignition modules? B&M?

I'm in the same boat. Unfortunately there aren't too many 6+ channel CDIs out there. Keep in mind they all seem to fail in a non-destructive way -by shutting off.

yeah, thats a plus. i tried a little search, but i didn't have a whole lot of time and it didn't help much. so back to my previous question, what are our other options/units we can use?

For a 20B you'd need a 5 channel, right? The 13B is 3, one shared for the leads and one each for the trailing. Just add another two for leading tnd trailing.

I'm looking at MSD at the moment. Digital-6 plus (has 535V to the primary) for the leadings and perhaps a DIS-2 HO for the trailings. The former is a single channel and the latter dual. The DIS-4, where it seemed like a viable option wouldn't work as others here have mentioned as well as MSD techs. For the moment, I was going to just going to get the Digital-6. Room will be an issue and so some have said, the trailings are good for about 5% of your power. May not seem like a lot, but when you're pushing 500 that's 25 horsies wanting to leave the stable. Not that that's what I'm pushing now, but I intend to.

A 3 rotor requires 6 channels. Unlike a 2 rotor, it does not have a waste spark on the leading coils because the motor fires every 120deg rather than 180deg.

I have a cdi unit I built a few years ago it was a single spark but it dumped 800Volt into the coil. It would blow the crap out of leads but could jump a spark 6 inches and so bright that it would light the whole garage up.

Michael Smith

I installed my 'revised' replacement today. It lasted 5 minutes.

How are you powering these modules? CDI's can use quite a bit of current if the voltage is too low the unit will not charge the capacitors inside with enough voltage and in so doing will not fire the coil. The biggest failures I have seen in any CDI is the SCR blows up. This can be cause by a couple of things.
1 coils leaking internally kill the SCR's
2 Coils leaking externally to the primary causing the High voltage to blow the SCR
3 Noisy power supply can cause random firing reducing the voltage and causing backfiring.
4 Capacitors fail due to coils having too low a resistance and the current exceed the maximum of the capacitor or SCR.
5 Low voltage to the unit causes low spark output and cause top end misfire.
6 Too much current to the trigger circuit (design) can blow the SCR gate.

1&2 solution use CDI coils only. (MSD Blasters work well)
3&5 Run cable directly via a fuse and relay to the Battery Positive.
4&6 Circuit design (AEM issue)

This is from my experience building CDI's for myself. All CDI's fail becasue they operate at the extream end of there design of available components, but you can't beat them for a clean hot spark!!!!!
Michael Smith

Interesting post Micheal. I am powering mine directly off the battery-an optima deep cycle and using the stock coils.

I just got this email from AEM:

I have one of these things that works perfect .The first one let the car die and restart , the next screwed with the timming really badly . The last one is in fact in a different case . The fins at the mounting holes are different . The thing is working as it should .After it proved itself to work for a time I changed the after market coils to even hotter ones .I am running four Jacobs C4 coils .They were hard to get in and things had to be moved to make room,but the difference was worth the time .

The unit that I posted about earlier in this thread also had a new case design. How did the second one you received affect the timing?

I have 6 units here that Im sending back to AEM. Im trying to get a complete refund on them or a credit. I give up on them for now until someone else can prove to me they work.

Jason

I can't get into a lot now, but I'll write more later.

I'm getting the new "new" version shipped tomorrow. :D

So the short of it is that I just told them that I think they owe me one and that I don't care about becoming a "test subject" so I'm getting this new version shipped...which should arrive on Wednesday. As they say I shouldn't hold my breath, but only time will tell. I unfortunately won't be able to fully install it until Friday, but I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

won't they just give you a refund and you use an ignition system that is known to work instead of this ongoing headache?

Tim

Ok. I got it. Same physical box, but no markings whatsoever (since I am a guinea pig here). I won't be able to fully install it until tomorrow night anyway as I'm redoing the wiring as well as relocating the coils. But the latter has already been completed and the former is half done. I'll post here as soon as I get some results.

Fuel cut ROCKS!!

So it's in and it's (so far) performing flawlessly. Seems pretty smooth. Had a hole in one of my trailing coils, so had to swap that (thanks Dave!!!!!) I also did the coil relocation, so there's a lot that's changed in addition to this new unit. I've shortened the wiring considerably (though I could do it more as I didn't measure well enough).

So...so far so good. I've made a post in the kills section to describe the near fatal (for my motor that is) kill while on a shakedown run.

I'll keep you all posted as time goes on.

As if my general level or frustration wasn't high enough.

So, I guess it was inevitable. I've started experiencing similar issues as before. These symptoms preceded the unit continually popping fuses. It's as if the unit is missing a signal to the coils or from the ecu. Severe stuttering/misfiring and some nasty...for lack of a better term...frontfiring (as opposed to backfiring), or at least, what it sounds like from a driver's perspective.

One question I've yet to have answered due to Mazda NA being your typical corporate entity is the specs on the stock FD coils. What are they good for? IE what's their max voltage rating and what is the winding ratio.

Here's what I've seen...and this is with new coils and now I'm beginning to believe this is what happened to my old coil (incidently, this was T2 only). I had replaced my old T2 coil as there was a big ass hole that had burned through it. I attributed it to age. I had relocated the coils where the ignitor sits, and after about a weekend with a spanking new coil, I had noticed that it was leaking. It was arcing to one of the screws, so I removed it and I was able to observe that it was arcing internally. Pretty cool sight to see...somewhat. So I assumed that it was a bad coil and sent it back for another one. Before I installed it, I had received another one that did the exact same thing. Now, keep in mind, this was ONLY on the T2 coil. The T1 and L coils seemed perfectly fine.

This is what I'm thinking and I'm going to ask AEM about this. It seems that the voltage supplied to T2 may be more than the coil can handle. In addition, they don't have the output balanced very well. Since I'm the only known one who's running this new box on an FD (according to AEM as of about 3 weeks ago) I don't have any other way to compare notes other than to have someone else get one and see what happens.

So, back on the bypass plug I go. Yeah...third time's a charm I think. HKS here I come....or MSD...something else...

Fuck dat shit.
I've put almost all of the cheaper CDI boxes on FC coils, and I've never had ONE burn a hole through the casing.
Blame AEM - don't blame the Mazda parts.
The list include: MSD 6A, MSD 6AL, Crane Cams HI-6, Mallory HyFire VI-A, MSD DIS-2, MSD DIS-4, MSD 7AL


-Ted