TheSamba.com :: View topic - Chinese MSD Distributor Tips & Tricks + Budget ignition Demo

Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:29 pm

That GM HEI conversion article I linked to had some good info, especially about the ign coils. I have done quite a few conversions and always used oil filled coils. Never had any problems but now I know to use an E core coil when I do my bug conversion.

One of my 'claims to fame' was recurving HEI distributors for oval track use where the rules require a stock dist. Putting a proper curve in the dist makes the car just jump off the turns. Never heard of any of these guys having a module go bad. The main thing I saw was on the street where the people would never change the cap and rotor which eventually would cause the sparks to stop.

Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:42 pm

jpaull wrote:
Man, if you need to bend the ears, something is really off. What method are you using to come to the conclusion they are really off?

Typically I get the idle set to 10 degrees and the engine slightly warmed up so it is idling steady then I move the timing light pickup to the coil wire and have a look. You may likely see one blink at 10, one at 8, one at 12 and the 4th somewhere in between. I then move around to each cylinder to see who is who. I try to bend the ears to move the biggest outlier but I only get one shot, more than one bend and they seem to break. I guess after re-reading your first post I should investigate if all four ears have the same gap between the pickup and address it like Mark said.

I check each cylinder against each other on points distributors as well. Typically choose the one with the least variance and scatter to alter the curve for my needs.

The distributor I have found to have the least variance between the cylinders as well as the least scatter is the Mallory Unilites, however they are not exactly cheap and easy to come by as your example.

Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:02 pm

AlteWagen wrote: Howard 111 wrote: I run a turbo, and an all MSD ignition, all made in USA. The only thing I've changed is the distributor cap, because a grey one looked better with my engine than the red one. :roll:

I thought MSD moved all its production to China a decade ago which is why reliability has suffered so much.

Very true. Lots of MSD is made in china, (very likely the digital 6A's). Their Analog boxes and U core coils are still USA made though, and that is one reason they are so much more expensive. The 6ALN, 6BTM, 7/8AL, and their HVC-2 "U-Core" coils still made in house.

Again, slightly used older 6A, 6ALN, and my favorite of the analog online bargains, is the Crane HI6N (as it has more juice) can be had all day long for $150. I recently purchased a older MSD 7AL for $85 that was factory refurbished and can drive the same more powerful coils like the MSDHVC2/CraneLX92.

Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:18 pm

KROC wrote: Jeff you are a total maniac!

Where do you find the time. :shock:

Cheers

Very carefully, since hot-rodding vw's dubs as kid education, the wife will let me have some wrenching and she will take care of the other little one for abit.

Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:25 pm

Hey Fred!

Thanks for the kind words, and while we don't agree much, your input is valued and welcomed.

My next project will be a pressure chamber. I can turn up the psi till the spark goes "poof" and disappears under pressure. Which ignition do you think will go "poof" and disappear first? Or do you have another reason why things cant be proven and you need a scope to verify something? I'm pretty sure I can find a Scope at a thrift store in the electronics section, they are right next to the cassette players and VHS stuff nobody wants :lol: .

Separating sparks is also a moot point. Now your stating a single spark is more important then multiple sparks, which is like arguing religion, and pointing towards your CDI as you claim the long duration is more important then shorter/stronger/multiple sparks. This is also the only thing you can do, as your box does not have the power supply to support higher output coils, and you would have to redesign the whole thing in order to do that. Then, you couldn't offer it to points only guys, and your not gonna change your zillion year legacy of the same product.

My demo I just built, is not to separate ignitions that are close, its a "No-shit, this one is 10X better its so obvious" way of demonstrating.

My 7 year old who has been following along, was comparing characteristics of ignition components and came up with a interesting comparison. We were talking about the pressure chamber, and which one he thought would go "poof" and disappear under pressure first. Comparing ignitions with CDI box based ignitions, and He said we should get ahold of one of yours, as it should be the first one to go poof under pressure. I asked why, and he said:

"it looks like it has only a 14awg power supply wire, and rated at 99MJ of output, only consuming .375 Amps per 1,000 rpms its impossible to have the output of any of the others".

This is what I get for having 3 spreadsheets open at once, and just wiring up different gauge wire and explaining why and what to him. Kids soak up anything when they have octane in their genes!

He also just had the lesson in fuel, where I couldn't get the full horsepower out of my car, as it had the original 1/4 fuel line designed for the 40hp engine. No matter how "efficient" my engine is, it requires more fuel to make more power. I had to upgrade the line in order to flow more fuel, same as ignition boxes at some point need to flow more power if they are going to deliver higher level of spark. In his 7 year old brain, he connected that lesson straight over to electrical output vs input.

At this point, whenever Fred gets technical, im just gonna hand the keyboard over to my 7 year old :D

Fred Winterburn wrote: Nice machine and nice video demonstration. However, to really see how the spark is, it should be scoped. If the Crane CDI is producing sparks at 1mS intervals like the MSD, visually one can't see the characteristics of a single spark. What one is seeing (and hearing) is the combination of several small, short duration sparks. It will make it seem more powerful than it really is given the time lag between each spark. Eyes and ears can only go so far. The analogue MSD for example, will make a squeaking noise due to the long 1mS spacing between the short (40µS) sparks, yet the spark will appear to be one spark despite the long quiescent interval between individual spark events. 1mS is too long an interval to make power by the way. The secondary side should be scoped and the waveform interpreted correctly to have a better idea of how effective it really is and its potential limitations (with regard to firing lean mixtures for example). Fred
EDIT: At approximately the 47 second mark of the video, look at the lower right hand spark plug. You will see the spark appears to fire to one ground electrode on the multi-electrode plug and then wrap itself to the adjacent ground electrode. This is not the same spark but the next in the series or 3rd and 4th in the series doing so. What you can't see, is the long interval between sparks which our senses lump together as one. At anything above idle speed, that long interval equates to many crankshaft degrees where there is actually no spark.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 2:06 am

Hehe. Well, there is a little more in it than that, efficiency of the spool for one thing. Capacitor type another. But youre going in the right direction. A pressure chamber REALLY changes the way things work and you will see behaviures you did´nt anticipate. A scope is actually not a bad tool to have. It is sort of the only way to determine the actual strength of the spark, and the length of the spark.
- Sounds like the boy has good analytic capacities.
WRT which system that blows out first there is yet another variable. Spark gap. If you set the gab as per his recommendation 0,028" I believe, then 99 mj will hold its arm at rather high cylinder pressures. But if the gap is opened to just 0,040" or even "worse" 0,045" You will experience that the behaviure changes completely. You will also notice that electrode wear increases, especially with conventional copper core plugs. That´s a problem if you expect 50000 miles out of your plugs. With exotic material tips not so much, but those are harder to come by in non resistor versions.

T

Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:49 am

Yep, build that pressure chamber and then scope your Crane so you are looking at a single spark not the entire series. There is a reason you could be mistaken into thinking a CDI needs a big fat red wire to be powerful. It's because some like the MSD 6A charge the small 1µF capacitor in one half cycle through the large power supply transformer. The fat red wire is from the battery right to the collectors of a pair of hefty power transistors. The wire is big because a large current is flowing through it intermittently. Mine and many others use hundreds or thousands of cycles at high frequency to charge the discharge capacitor. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages but overall the high frequency oscillator design works better. I won't go into all of the pros and cons here. I put 16 gauge wires on my unit but quite frankly in CDI mode it would work just as well with 22 gauge wire. The wire gauge has to be larger if the switch is selected to STD (kettering mode). If you really want to test a CDI other than mine with two distinct sparks coming at close intervals (less than 400µS apart), check out the Classic Retrofits CDI made in the UK. It has been proven to make more HP than the Bosch CDI it replaces and it does so regulated to 300V rather than the Bosch's 400-450V. That CDI is not a high energy CDI, it is just a very smart one that works. Don't choke when you see the price. Fred EDIT: see the classic retrofit here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K65slwl__dk

jpaull wrote: Hey Fred!

Thanks for the kind words, and while we don't agree much, your input is valued and welcomed.

My next project will be a pressure chamber. I can turn up the psi till the spark goes "poof" and disappears under pressure. Which ignition do you think will go "poof" and disappear first? Or do you have another reason why things cant be proven and you need a scope to verify something? I'm pretty sure I can find a Scope at a thrift store in the electronics section, they are right next to the cassette players and VHS stuff nobody wants :lol: .

Separating sparks is also a moot point. Now your stating a single spark is more important then multiple sparks, which is like arguing religion, and pointing towards your CDI as you claim the long duration is more important then shorter/stronger/multiple sparks. This is also the only thing you can do, as your box does not have the power supply to support higher output coils, and you would have to redesign the whole thing in order to do that. Then, you couldn't offer it to points only guys, and your not gonna change your zillion year legacy of the same product.

My demo I just built, is not to separate ignitions that are close, its a "No-shit, this one is 10X better its so obvious" way of demonstrating.

My 7 year old who has been following along, was comparing characteristics of ignition components and came up with a interesting comparison. We were talking about the pressure chamber, and which one he thought would go "poof" and disappear under pressure first. Comparing ignitions with CDI box based ignitions, and He said we should get ahold of one of yours, as it should be the first one to go poof under pressure. I asked why, and he said:

"it looks like it has only a 14awg power supply wire, and rated at 99MJ of output, only consuming .375 Amps per 1,000 rpms its impossible to have the output of any of the others".

This is what I get for having 3 spreadsheets open at once, and just wiring up different gauge wire and explaining why and what to him. Kids soak up anything when they have octane in their genes!

He also just had the lesson in fuel, where I couldn't get the full horsepower out of my car, as it had the original 1/4 fuel line designed for the 40hp engine. No matter how "efficient" my engine is, it requires more fuel to make more power. I had to upgrade the line in order to flow more fuel, same as ignition boxes at some point need to flow more power if they are going to deliver higher level of spark. In his 7 year old brain, he connected that lesson straight over to electrical output vs input.

At this point, whenever Fred gets technical, im just gonna hand the keyboard over to my 7 year old :D

Fred Winterburn wrote: Nice machine and nice video demonstration. However, to really see how the spark is, it should be scoped. If the Crane CDI is producing sparks at 1mS intervals like the MSD, visually one can't see the characteristics of a single spark. What one is seeing (and hearing) is the combination of several small, short duration sparks. It will make it seem more powerful than it really is given the time lag between each spark. Eyes and ears can only go so far. The analogue MSD for example, will make a squeaking noise due to the long 1mS spacing between the short (40µS) sparks, yet the spark will appear to be one spark despite the long quiescent interval between individual spark events. 1mS is too long an interval to make power by the way. The secondary side should be scoped and the waveform interpreted correctly to have a better idea of how effective it really is and its potential limitations (with regard to firing lean mixtures for example). Fred
EDIT: At approximately the 47 second mark of the video, look at the lower right hand spark plug. You will see the spark appears to fire to one ground electrode on the multi-electrode plug and then wrap itself to the adjacent ground electrode. This is not the same spark but the next in the series or 3rd and 4th in the series doing so. What you can't see, is the long interval between sparks which our senses lump together as one. At anything above idle speed, that long interval equates to many crankshaft degrees where there is actually no spark.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 6:50 am

Traditional ignition modules should be listed as "multispark" systems because they do a series of sparks at each firing.

When all is stock, the multispark feature is a consequence of the inductor-condenser-resistor network (RLC) that forms, in electrician language, an oscillator.

Basic CDI modules (like the BOSCH CDI) instead produce only a single spark, and in some conditions this may be an issue.

Now the availability of good performance semiconductors made possible of to having cheap multispark CDI.

The theory is that multiple sparks help into burning unburned portions of the air/fuel mixture.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:06 am

You'll see that written a lot, but it is actually incorrect. Look at a typical waveform of the Kettering system and it will be apparent. The spark from the Kettering system even when there is a condenser in play is of single polarity and one single spark. The output is AC just as the points open, but the spark is struck on the leading edge of the first quarter of that sine wave. And once struck, the impedance across the spark gap is so low that the coil discharges with a single polarity. The only difference to the waveform from the condenser is the no-load (or pre-spark if you will) sine wave has a lower frequency than if the same coil is switched with a transistor and no condenser in the circuit. My CDI on the other hand is AC. Positive and negative sparks occurring with the first in the series being negative. Fred
herbie1200 wrote: Traditional ignition modules should be listed as "multispark" systems because they do a series of sparks at each firing.

When all is stock, the multispark feature is a consequence of the inductor-condenser-resistor network (RLC) that forms, in electrician language, an oscillator.

Basic CDI modules (like the BOSCH CDI) instead produce only a single spark, and in some conditions this may be an issue.

Now the availability of good performance semiconductors made possible of to having cheap multispark CDI.

The theory is that multiple sparks help into burning unburned portions of the air/fuel mixture.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:24 am

herbie1200 wrote: Traditional ignition modules should be listed as "multispark" systems because they do a series of sparks at each firing.

When all is stock, the multispark feature is a consequence of the inductor-condenser-resistor network (RLC) that forms, in electrician language, an oscillator.

Erhm, not exactly. what you see is a shock wave which can´t really be called a spark.

WRT the UK rebuilt and modified Bosch units. Yes, they are SIGNIFICANTLY better than the original product. But that aint´worth writing home about either. (They are supposed to yeld 300V to the coil, but they never do, not anymore at least.) And yes they improve power some compared to the stock Bosch. A simple MSD, Crane or similar CDI does it even better, no matter the last spark is too late. The early sgl spark 911´s do have a crappy plug position, so just about anything that makes a better spark than stock will be an improvement. A British colleague did a test on a 2,7 SC engine with 10-1 pistons and RS cams, where he went from stock to retrofit to MSD to ionfire. I forgot what the peak power differences was, but in the 2800-3300 rpm window the differences was massive. Retrofit + 6 hp. MSD 6Al +9 hp. MSD + Ionfire Plasma +13 hp with a full 3 degrees less timing. Ionfire alone +7 hp. Bosch retrofit and Ionfire +11 hp. He also noted that at idle, with both the Retrofit and the MSD + the Ionfire the emissions were about as clean as on engines with Twin spark, as rpm rose it couldnt quite hold the low emission, but it was still significantly better at WOT than the stock Bosch CDI. another interesting thing about his test was that he practicly did´nt touch the jetting on the main system, so it pulled the extra hp on the same amount of fuel! only burned significantly better.

Some day I want to try the Winterburn CDI up against stock and MSD/Crane and perhaps even Plasma on the dyno, with the sniffer hooked up to the tailpipe to see what is going on in real life. I just need to get around to it. It seems that projects are piling up.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:44 am

This is the kind of knowledge that makes you shake your head at people still running points ign on "high performance" VW engines.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:13 am

Running points on mine into the low 14s.....easy :wink:

Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:56 am

Attached to one of my CDIs right? Fred

norris wrote: Running points on mine into the low 13s....easy :wink:

Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:00 am

Yes sir.....and one of Glenn’s 010s

Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:08 am

A 1, 2 punch.

The best "vintage" ignition combo.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:53 am

Floating VW wrote: jpaull wrote: Chinese stuff. Overview here that applies to many things produced in Chinese factories.

Bin #1 is the perfect stuff. No blemishes, marks, dings, all specs perfect and works perfect.
Bin #2 has some blemishes, marks, dings, but still functions ok.
Bin #3 has marks, imperfections, weird shit messed up, doesn't run or work and should be thrown away. This stuff should never make it out of the factory.
I just wanted to add that the above is 100% true, and not just in China. I lived in a third-world country (Brasil) for a few years and two of my students were the quality control managers, one for a company that manufactured circuit boards, and the other for a shoe manufacturer. They both told me almost the exact same thing: The stuff that completely failed QC usually got thrown away; the stuff that passed QC with flying colors got exported to first-world countries in Europe and North America; and the stuff that failed, but only by a small margin, got sold locally or shipped to other third-world countries.

But here's the rub: when the company needs to cut costs or the economy goes south, the first person to get laid off is the guy in quality control (in fact, the student from the shoe company had to cancel classes because he was fired for this very reason). And when that happens, there is no longer a distinction between passed, partially failed, and completely failed. It all gets a pass.

Enter Chrysler Motor corp...

Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:54 am

While it's cool to some of us to run a "vintage" setup like mine, it's also cool to run a system like Jeff has put together that is at 1/3 the cost and works at least just as well. It all depends on where you might be with the $s.
That's the cool thing about this obsession....you can have just as much fun with whatever you can afford!
My hat's off to Jeff and his innovation.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:32 am

norris wrote: While it's cool to some of us to run a "vintage" setup like mine, it's also cool to run a system like Jeff has put together that is at 1/3 the cost and works at least just as well. It all depends on where you might be with the $s.
That's the cool thing about this obsession....you can have just as much fun with whatever you can afford!
My hat's off to Jeff and his innovation.
This is the ignition system on the 2017 EFI engine I built.

Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:39 am

Quote: This is the ignition system on the 2017 EFI engine I built.

Thats a wasted spark setup. Firing the plugs on the exhaust stroke is dumb

Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:49 am

Are you sure JP's car runs just as well with the Crane CDI? Maybe. I suppose 'expensive' depends on the customer, its performance, and how long one expects it to work without failing. $332USD for one of my CDIs at today's Canadian/US exchange rate is not that expensive IMO. The guys with 6V Porsche 356s don't think that's too expensive. A couple of those customers have told me I should be charging more. But then, they can also afford the Porsche. And right now I am the only one building a 6V CDI until someone else decides there is a big enough market for it. I'm likely going to stop building in a year or two anyway. Fred

norris wrote: While it's cool to some of us to run a "vintage" setup like mine, it's also cool to run a system like Jeff has put together that is at 1/3 the cost and works at least just as well. It all depends on where you might be with the $s.
That's the cool thing about this obsession....you can have just as much fun with whatever you can afford!
My hat's off to Jeff and his innovation.