TheSamba.com :: View topic

Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:17 am

it wasn't me! I don't do that Hiding Behind a Keyboard crap. If you find out who it was post it up. I'll say it to your face with my name on the post, just like Jake. :lol:

John
Aircooled.Net Inc.

Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:33 pm

John,
We all know that you are an honest guy that would never do that.

I do know of a couple of less than honest people that might do this, one of them just happen to have called me the day before this the mysterious Mallory rep made his post.

FWIW- Early in this situation I caught John on instant messenger one day and told him what to look for with the dizzies and he started inspecting the units closer that he sells.

Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:40 pm

I got mine last week from Jon so I hope your chat was prior to my purchase. In my book, you two are highly respected and cast a positive light on a dark place known as "after market".

Wed Nov 26, 2008 5:27 pm

i still have the coil

Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:26 pm

How does the pertronix billet distributors look on the insides ? Kind of bummed that Mallory got QC problems .

Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:13 pm

I think I'll have to check when the I've got was built.

What's the consensus on a good replacement distributor for the Mallory?

Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:16 am

Andrew wrote: I think I'll have to check when the I've got was built.

What's the consensus on a good replacement distributor for the Mallory?

In a large cap fully adjustable vac advance distributor right now there is no alternative :(

Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:19 am

We have been working to find an alternative to the Mallory for 6 months. The Pertronix works OK, but isn't as adjustable as the Mallory and they are hard to get more than one at a time. They also will not fir a TIV with stock cooling easily.

I am working with a company that has made a billet dizzy for the 2.3 Ford engine that works very well and is very adjustable. If these work it may be the ultimate answer- Made in the USA.

Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:20 am

krusher wrote: Andrew wrote: I think I'll have to check when the I've got was built.

What's the consensus on a good replacement distributor for the Mallory?

In a large cap fully adjustable vac advance distributor right now there is no alternative :(

Shit. I was going to be ordering a 2nd one before too long. Guess I might be waiting... :?

Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:33 am

Jake Raby wrote: We have been working to find an alternative to the Mallory for 6 months. The Pertronix works OK, but isn't as adjustable as the Mallory and they are hard to get more than one at a time. They also will not fir a TIV with stock cooling easily.

I am working with a company that has made a billet dizzy for the 2.3 Ford engine that works very well and is very adjustable. If these work it may be the ultimate answer- Made in the USA.

Is this going to have vacuum too jake?

I am in the market for one, when could we expect them?

Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:42 am

Andrew wrote: I think I'll have to check when the I've got was built.

May 19, 2008... :?

Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:04 pm

krusher wrote: Jake Raby wrote: We have been working to find an alternative to the Mallory for 6 months. The Pertronix works OK, but isn't as adjustable as the Mallory and they are hard to get more than one at a time. They also will not fir a TIV with stock cooling easily.

I am working with a company that has made a billet dizzy for the 2.3 Ford engine that works very well and is very adjustable. If these work it may be the ultimate answer- Made in the USA.

Is this going to have vacuum too jake?

I am in the market for one, when could we expect them?
I doubt it'll have vacuum, and I have no idea if/ when it'll test well enough to be a possibility or if I would want to sell them separate of engines/ kits.

Selling ingniotion components carries lots of liability and CRAP to deal with, the kind of stuff that makes it not worth the hassle to guys like me.

Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:19 pm

Jake Raby wrote: krusher wrote: Jake Raby wrote: We have been working to find an alternative to the Mallory for 6 months. The Pertronix works OK, but isn't as adjustable as the Mallory and they are hard to get more than one at a time. They also will not fir a TIV with stock cooling easily.

I am working with a company that has made a billet dizzy for the 2.3 Ford engine that works very well and is very adjustable. If these work it may be the ultimate answer- Made in the USA.

Is this going to have vacuum too jake?

I am in the market for one, when could we expect them?
I doubt it'll have vacuum, and I have no idea if/ when it'll test well enough to be a possibility or if I would want to sell them separate of engines/ kits.

Selling ingniotion components carries lots of liability and CRAP to deal with, the kind of stuff that makes it not worth the hassle to guys like me.

Well that another one crossed off the very short list. :(

Thu Nov 27, 2008 4:55 pm

Keith, if you just want a good distributor with good curve characteristics, the SVDA is a good choice. It's what I use on my bus, and I get great mileage and a rock solid timing mark.

BTW, speaking of vacuum advance, I can send that throttle body to you tomorrow if you want, or it'll be Thursday of next week, when I get back from Chicago. If you want me to ship it tomorrow, PM me an address to send it to. Otherwise we can catch up on it when I get back.

--Mark

Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:23 pm

Jake Raby wrote:
I doubt it'll have vacuum, and I have no idea if/ when it'll test well enough to be a possibility or if I would want to sell them separate of engines/ kits.

Selling ingnition components carries lots of liability and CRAP to deal with, the kind of stuff that makes it not worth the hassle to guys like me.

If they do, maybe you and John at aircooled.net could work out something - pad the price some to help recoup your R&D efforts. I understand the liability portion - I cook the electronics and blame you for a faulty dizzy. Then what.

This seems interesting.

Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:38 pm

There is always this thing.

http://www.volksworld.com/news/latest/171063/123-electronic-ignition-for-vws.html

I think with the euro to dollar conversions it is around $14,200 - give or take...

Seriously though, aside from not being able to get spare parts easily, has anyone run with one of these?

Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:48 pm

Quote: I understand the liability portion - I cook the electronics and blame you for a faulty dizzy. Then what
Or you don't ground it correctly or you run the battery dead and try to fire the engine up and that kills the module... Or you don't have an engine to chassis ground strap in place with clean connections Or you refuse to use the component with KNOWN compatible components of the same manufacture.

Then I get blamed... and you say " I bought this distributor, paid 400 bucks for it and it lasted 5 miles"

Then fingers are pointed...

Then I have become an asshole...

Then you go all over the internet inaccurately saying that I wouldn't support my product.

No, making 40 bucks on a sale isn't worth that. When they stop producing idiots I might change my product line up a bit- :-)

Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:15 pm

Jake Raby wrote: Or you don't ground it correctly or you run the battery dead and try to fire the engine up and that kills the module... Or you don't have an engine to chassis ground strap in place with clean connections Or you refuse to use the component with KNOWN compatible components of the same manufacture.

Then I get blamed... and you say " I bought this distributor, paid 400 bucks for it and it lasted 5 miles"

Then fingers are pointed...

Then I have become an asshole...

Then you go all over the internet inaccurately saying that I wouldn't support my product.

No, making 40 bucks on a sale isn't worth that. When they stop producing idiots I might change my product line up a bit- :-)
Or you could use a reluctor and magnetic pickup. It's probably the most reliable triggering setup, but it does require an external ignition system of some sort. You could use an off the shelf Detroit style magnetic pickup amplifier made by a number of different companies.

Better still, Jacobs, MSD and Mallory all make high energy ignition system that will trigger from magnetic pickups.

Hot distributors are not a good place to install electronics.

The other problem is that a distributor has limited space that is not really adequate to add the components necessary for voltage surge suppression, and other self protection circuits that you will normally find inside an external electronic ignition system.

Scott Novak

Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:30 pm

In reference to Memphis12 being from Mallory. He is. (Where someone posted that he was not. Makes me wonder about the validity of other postings) the answers and statements he made ARE correct. None the less, he was sent this forum by a co-worker and asked to offer some answers. He is the manufacturing engineer for entire factory and 6 product lines which as you would expect consumes most of his time. That is the reason he has not continued to reply. Just imagine having to try and keep up with thousands of products in the market place. I’m sure everyone would agree we would need an Army of people to try and track and answer all the forums and product discussions out there. We do the best we can with the resources we have. It can be compared to trying to hold back the ocean with a broom.
I have many years experience with the Mallory products as well. I will do my best to answer as much as I can before I go back on the road. The picture of the advance you showed were of an advance that has not been made for close to 16 years. It was a good system but required much bulkier pieces to make everything work as it should do to the amount of mass. As with all distributors routine maintenance will ensure proper performance and increases the product life. The new style advances are very efficient with considerably less mass. Thus causing less stress and wear on the components.
The VW distributor or dizzy as it were, has been a mainstay in the Mallory line for many years. The advance curve is very close to that of the Bosch. The advance is very easy to adjust with spring kits and feeler gauges as you already stated. It was also stated that the advance was erratic or jumped around at idle. The biggest thing associated with this is the raised idle speed usually associated to cam shaft or cylinder head configurations. When the idle is raised it causes the curve to start to creep in. With a radical cam it makes this appear worse due to the duration lope. This is a simple fix of changing springs or a simple tweak of the spring post adding a little preload will do the trick without sacrificing performance. On the racing or competition style distributors a vacuum advance is not offered. The street and high performance models do have the vacuum advance option which can be adjusted for optimum performance. In an earlier posting it was asked if there was a race or high end style. The CT Pro series is the racing version. It comes in a 20 degree 009 curve or locked advance. I recently competed in and finished the Baja 1000 in a 1-2 1600 class using a complete Mallory system. I used the 20 degree advance unit with dual magnetic pick-ups. The pick-ups are adjustable for dual timing settings. We ran them the same and chose to use an adjustable timing map with a switch on the dash. Due to the engine limitations on the class it was to our advantage to advance the timing at high altitudes like La Rumorosa, the back road to Mike’s and the pass to Santo Tomase. We ran a Mallory box, coil and distributor. The ACCEL 25 ohm race wire worked great as well. Before you bash the Mallory wire, ACCEL is a sister company. I could include pictures of the motor with all of our components if you would like. Adam Wik ran it on the dyno and is running the system in his pre-runner now. FAT Performance also tested the system, they built a great motor. In fact, they approved the advance curve. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me ramble. Happy motoring to all.

NV_Racer

Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:47 pm

Quote: It was also stated that the advance was erratic or jumped around at idle.
Incorrect.
The timing scatters at most any RPM on the units that have problems. This can be seen with a timing light, especially around 3,500 RPM. This was not a trait of the Mallory Uni-Lite as recent as 2 years ago- in fact I often bragged about how stable the timing was and how that adds to prerformance and efficiency.

Quote: The biggest thing associated with this is the raised idle speed usually associated to cam shaft or cylinder head configurations. When the idle is raised it causes the curve to start to creep in. With a radical cam it makes this appear worse due to the duration lope
Yes, I understand this well and know how to tune around it. This is not the root of the problems with your product as it stands today.

To date two posts have been made here in public from two different representatives, but no one has addressed the questions and concerns that myself and a couple of motivated enthusiats directed at your department via letters, email corresspondence and phone calls. It seems that you are more concerned with public image than solving the problems that exist and have been noted by those that have used the units past and present.

I gave up on anyone from your company actually trying to address these issues, emails, phone calls and letters didn't get the job done. And of course everyone that has posted here maintains that there are no issues and the units haven't changed but thats also not accurate as I hold the data and have tested over 1,000 engines that have utilized the Mallory Uni-Lite distributor.

Do you think I would have created more work for myself by having to source and test more components as a substitute if the problems were not real?

Care to explain to me why in 9 years of using the Mallory Uni-Lite I only had ONE unit that was bad out of the box prior to 2008 but this year I have SEVEN that were bad right out of the box?