Electronic ignition and ways to improve them

[Back N Black]

This is not going to help you with your problem, but I have been running the Firecore ready to run dist. That i bought from FirefighterRon. Its being 15 years and 20 thousand miles and never had a spark issue.

[b5blue]

Yea me to till not.

[Kern Dog]

What keeps me sticking with the Mopar system is that I have memories of the numerous cars that I've owned with them that rarely ever had a problem.
I think that part of the problem that I've had is that I've used new products in the shiny car because seasoned factory parts still work but look bad. Those new parts were not made in America by a company with a reputation to protect. Back then, like now, if you sold cars that stalled and couldn't be started up again, word would get out that you sold crappy cars and sales would plummet.
Now we buy these ignition boxes from random manufacturers with little to no reputation to protect.
I'm tempted to start looking for OEM units from original cars. I can sandblast, prime and paint them to look nice.

[b5blue]

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm learning through qualified responses I've read in threads on other forums that parts used within these systems do need to be properly suited to run right and last.
The electronic ignition conversion used a 2 pin ballast resistor that had a cold ohm reading of .7 but that number changed to .5 once the engine got up to temp. I didn't know that the resistance value changed as the system warmed up.
Also, the lower the resistance number of the ballast resistor, the higher RPMs you'll be able to go before the system starts to misfire.
The lower the resistance number of the ballast, the hotter the ECM operates and the faster that it will fail.
Race only systems used a .25 ballast because the cars idled, ran at WOT, then were parked until the next race. Street cars run a lot longer so to run them with a .25 ballast resistor would ensure early failure of the ECM.

[b5blue]

Why deal with old tech? MSD done. 

[Kern Dog]

MSD with their control box that is as ugly as a mud fence and half the size of a battery?
No, thanks.
The new ones are Chinese and no more reliable than anything else.

[b5blue]

No you don't need the box, I've got just the dizzy and it runs great. How about a fully solid state one?
https://progressionignition.com/

[John_Kunkel]

MSD with their control box that is as ugly as a mud fence and half the size of a battery?
No, thanks.

MSD "ready-to-run" distributors need no control box.