streckfu's

So far so good. Seems to start a little easier and throttle response is a little crisper. The first time I started it after the install, I blew some carbon flakes out the pipe. Most likey build-up from running rich. The WG is shot and I have a new Tial 38mm going on soon...

I'll add a more detail assessment after I get to drive in the dry (raining like mad right now.....)

Oh yeah, The plugs are NGK BPR7ES....

After a spirited commute, I'm pretty sure that the ignition is moderately smoother overall. The car felt a little more willing to rev and is much smoother throughout the rpm band. After reading the copious amounts of info available in the archives and on the Pelican tech site, I decided the ballast resistor isn't neccessary. So far, it's a worthwhile upgrade for $40.

Mark944na86

What year and model is your car? I put one of these on an '86 944 NA a few years ago (see avatar), and I thought it was a good "bang for buck" upgrade. I was initially quite skeptical that there would be any noticable improvements, but there was a bit of extra low-end torque, and overall responsiveness was better, as you've noted. It also fixed up an annoying hesistation problem I'd been trying to track down for some time.

Did you upgrade your coil and wires as well? I put on Magnecor 8.5 wires, and a MSD Blaster 2 coil when I did the MSD 6A upgrade, IIRC.

I haven't upgraded the ignition on my S2; it's been running sweetly, so I've been attending to other more obvious things at this stage. I'd be interested in hearing opinions of people who have tried this upgrade on the S2 engines...

-Mark

944_S_TYPE

I have an Jacobs energy coil that I plan to install on My "S" Anyone heard good things about it?

streckfu's

Mark,

I've had the Magnacor 8.5mm wires for a while now. I installed them when I replaced the distributor cap, etc.

tod84944

Will just adding the MSD coil make that much difference with 8mm wires????

streckfu's

Don't look for big improvments unless your current parts are worn. If you have all stock components, you'll probably see an appreciable improvement. Just don't use the MSD coil with stock wires.

Manning

I just removed the MSD 6A from my car. Apparently something malfunctioned inside of it and was causing my car to stall. I have to check and see if there is any kind of warranty covering it still. It was on the car for less than a year. MSD coil is still on there though and seems to be working fine.

Mikeaagesen

Does it get hot and stall the car? I had this setup on my old prelude and it worked on cold weather, but when it got hot, I was stranded until it cooled down.

L8 APEKS

If you have an N/A car, you won't see the same gains from an ignition system ugrade as the Turbo guys.

The more you have done to the Turbo, the more difference you'll feel. As you up the fuel and boost, you make the mixture much more dense than the stock system was designed to ignite. A complete ignition upgrade (plugs/wires/coil/amplifier) on a modded Turbo will most certainly add power you can feel.

On an N/A car, you'll get throttle response and smoothness and willingness to rev. The more you have done to the car (fuel/air), the more you'll feel it. I'll probably do one on my N/A but it's not high on my list.

I actually felt a huge increase in power just changing my plugs...if you haven't changed them in a while, it's worth a try. Cheap power!

IceShark

Oh, $hit, that is what is probably happening to me. After all that work installing. And to add insult to injury I never noticed any improvement when I put it in.

But now that it is up into the 70F plus range I have had the car fire up but not keep running without goosing the gas. And it has backfired coming off throttle. This is the first time for these problems in the 15 years I've owned the car.

I always had this suspicion that MSD was snakeoil. Maybe my gut was right all along. This is on an 88 TS.

ibkevin

Dan, You just keep pissing Randy off, don't you.

streckfu's

What do you mean "keep"? I wasn't aware I did it previously.

Manning

I wasn't sure what the problem was at first. I had a thread going a couple weeks ago about the stalling problem. I was afraid it was the MSD, but I didn't want to remove it because I had fabricated a nifty little mount for it.

Anyway, what would happen was that I could drive for several miles and the car would run great, but then it would start cutting out, like somebody had flipped a switch, and sometimes would come back to life and other times it would completely stall. When it would stall, if I let it sit for a few minutes it would fire back up, but would stall again 5 or 10 minutes later.

So I swapped in a new DME relay and checked all the solder points on the DME itself to make sure that wasn't the issue (I had wanted to take care of that anyway) and went out driving again. Low and behold it did the same damn thing. But one of the times it did it, the car belched out a big gas smelling plume of smoke from the exhaust which told me there was no spark. So I disconnected the MSD and plugged the stock harness back onto the coil and the car fired right up. Since the MSD has been removed from the car I have not had the problem at all, with about 200 miles of driving on the car over the past week. And the car runs really well, other than needing a front end alignment.

To answer the question about whether the MSD got hot, no not to the touch. However it was clearly a thermal fault protection issue. I looked at my receipt last night and I still have about 2 month on the warranty, so it goes back this coming week for MSD to look at.

Also, when I installed the MSD intially I thought the car felt more responsive. However, I also replaced every vacuum line on the car at the same time as well as the ISV, O rings on the oil vapor seperator, and the cap and rotor. Replacing those things could have been what improved responsiveness.

jaje

sorry but i don't want to thread jack but you are the exact topic i'm researching and have had a problem with your MSD 6A(L) - of which i was looking at (seen alot of other failures due to engine heat so i've been researching options)

i'm wondering if anyone has heard of the Mallory Hyfire 6AL (seems to be a knock off of the MSD 6AL)? Says it's digital and doesn't require pills to set the rev limit.

http://www.centuryperformance.com/de...T_ID=MAL-6853M

Manning

Heard of but know nothing about the Mallory or Jacobs or any other MSD type boxes. I and just about anybody else with them in the 944 series used the 6A, not the 6AL, because we don't need the rev limiting feature provided by the AL.