Silver7

I have an FD (stock ign.) and need some help wiring this Mallory CDI. Everything is pretty self explanitory except for wiring the trigger signal. The CDI box has two wires (violet -and green+) for the trigger input signal. There is only one signal wire for the leading coils coming from the ECU (haltech E6K) to the ignitor. Any suggestions on how to wire this?

Silver7

I did some more reading and now I am a little confused. Is the CDI installed between the stock ignitor and the coil or between the ECU wire (before the ignitor) and the coil?

Silver7

I think I've answered my own question. I will wire mine after the stock ignitor. This is very unclear since the instructions say to wire the magnetic pickup directly from the Trigger sensor. It's hard to believe there isn't a write up on this for the FD. I've had to read the write ups on the FC and figure it out from there. If anyone has done this install or has any comments please chime in.

RETed

Mallory made the HyFire's mimic the MSD wiring.
If you can find info on MSD (6A) installs for an FD, it's the same colors.


-Ted

Silver7

I just finished installing the Hyfire CDI. Turns out I didn't need to use the trigger sensor wires. I think I will do a small writeup on the wiring. It's really not that difficult, it just has different wires than the Crane unit. Unfortunately the only install notes I could find was with a Crane CDI on an FC. I could not find any install notes on the MSD and I could not find any install notes on the FD. It seems all the FD guys just buy the HKS twinpower.

RETed

I have both the Crane Cams HI-6 and MSD 6A install notes on my website.


-Ted

Silver7

I got a chance to look at your notes and they are basically the same as the Hyfire like you mentioned in an earlier post. What threw me off was that the white wire was shown to be used for points style ignition system and the violet and green wires were shown to be used for a magnetic pickup system. I assumed I was to use the green and violet wires since the FD uses a magnetic pickup system. Here is how the install goes for a 93 FD.

Cut the black/red and the yellow/blue wires that go into the leading coil.
Wire the orange (hyfire) wire to the black/red wire going into the coil.
Wire the thin black (hyfire) wire to the yellow/blue wire going into the coil.
Wire the thin red (hyfire) wire to the black/red wire going to the ignitor/12volt ign
Wire the white (hyfire) wire to the yellow/blue wire going to the ignitor.
Wire thick red to battery and thick black to ground
the yellow (tach), green (trigger) and violet (trigger) wires are not needed.

RETed

Yeah, ignore the "points" and "mag pick-up" notation - damn V8 domestic owners use those terms loosely.

Basically, the "points" trigger is higher power.
The "mag pick-up" trigger is low power.

Your mag sensors on the FD go first through the ECU and then to the coils.
If you connected the HyFire directly from the mag sensors, it'll trigger the HyFire but you get zero advance / retard that the ECU is normally programmed with.

So, we take the signal after the ECU and after the ignitor, which happens to be a higher power trigger which is similar to a "points" trigger on a V8 set-up.


-Ted

Silver7

Does it make a difference whether we interrupt the signal before or after the stock ignitor? Does the signal become "high power" after it leaves the ECU or is it the ignitor that steps up the power before it goes to the coils?

RoadRaceJosh

The ignitor is your old ignition "box" that takes the low level signal input from the ECU and switches power to the coil(s) off and on. You may be able to trigger the Mallory box off the ECU wire directly and eliminate the stock ignitor. Try the white wire and if that doesn't work try the purple wire. Simplifying when possible is usually a good thing.

Silver7

I can't eliminate the ignitor all together because the trailing coils are being driven by the ignitor. If I ever get CDI boxes for the trailing coils then I will consider eliminating the stock ignitor all together. My original question was where to connect the CDI (before or after the ignitor). All the writeups I saw wired it after the ignitor, so that's what I did. I don't completely understand why people aren't wiring the CDIs before the ignitor, but it seems to work the way it is so I'll probably leave it alone for a while.

RETed

I can't guarantee you it'll work pre-ignitor; the low-power stock ECU signal might not be consistent enough for the CDI boxes to fire.
I know the boxes work fine post-ignitior.


-Ted