Ordered my motor and carbs and now have to start thinking about ignition. Since I have always been the FI guy, most of this is all very foreign and complicated to me. how does a car run without a computer?!?!?! Hoping to start a little banter about likes and dislikes, plusses and drawbacks, sweet revelations and horror stories, car-BQ's or more power in different places, etc.

I know I am going to leave someone out, and there are a lot of cross-over systems, but try and select the most ADVANCED piece of equipment on your car.

steve77

hey check out this link for your easiest and least expensive answer , if interested I have a guy who custom built a harness for my electronic dizzy< not much to it really but its new and has either the by pass or eliminates the ballast resistir and I have a word file that explain it all very well , made sense to me which was amazing http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/engine.html

scroll down to the ignition area I can sent you the instruction if you like just pm with your email address , good luck jeff:geek:

Steve, the Nissan EI is pretty darn good.

Anyone know about Luminition? Was reading through the Paeco catalogue (not the grandest endorsement, I know) the other day and stumbled on to it. Sounds good, but hey, they all sound good in a catalogue.

Another thing I find interesting: MSA and VB sell only Crane, and yet you have to look REALLY HARD to find even so much as a little 700 box. I don't believe I have EVER seen a HI-6 box. Go to a big Z show, or even a regular car show or an autocross and do a little poll. You will end up about 20/1 6A boxes over anything Crane. Is it just because MSD is so much cheaper? The HI-6 and 6A do the same thing, right?

steve77

Hi Steve,

I thought I'd chime in here, as the makers of Lumenition products are based just a couple of miles from me here in London ( although they are on the other side of the river ).

Their "Optronic" ignition system is a good conversion to get rid of the standard points and condenser. Its all fairly fool-proof and long-lived as a long as you install the black box in a place where it won't get too hot. It likes to have a little bit of airflow over its cooling vanes.............. They have a good reputation over here and there are many types of cars that run their products.

AUTOCAR ELECTRICAL EQPT. LTD. - for LUMENITION

I used to run the Lumenition OPTRONIC setup on my old red car, and it was great. However, you have to be aware that a great percentage of distributor-related woes are not electrical but MECHANICAL. That is to say, half the time the bearings in the dizzy itself are so shot that the signal is all over the place. The Lumenition kit claims to fix this, as the optical signal is not affected by distributor shaft and bearing wear.

At the moment my ZG is running a hybrid system based on Lucas parts ( horror of horrors! ). Its a brand-new Lucas distributor for a Triumph GT6 engine adapted to fit the L24, running a Lucas electronic ignition unit. It works just fine, and never needs to be touched.

I have a better setup stashed away which is destined to go on my 3096cc engine project ( which has been on the backburner for the last few years ). That engine should be fairly potent and I figured that a better setup was probably prudent. Its a full-custom KAMEARI distributor with a CDI made by ULTRA. Its pretty impressive to look at, and they guarantee excellent results on the bigger N/A engines.

My S20 engine uses an electronic distributor system ( Mitsubishi ) as standard, so I might leave that alone.

Cheers,

Alan T.

I got my Pertronix from Vic Brit.

I just installed a Crane 700, and a lx coil. It basically justs replaces the points with an optical pickup. I have a HI6 but it's not in yet. I haven't had any problems yet, but it's still very new. It does rev a lot nicer now though. If I run into any problems I'll post them.

Steve,

Probably most all of the current electronic systems are more than satisfactory. The Nissan magnetic trigger distributors are good as long as you find one in good working order. If you can find a new one it will save you the hassel of repairing a boneyard model. Personally, I opted for simplicity and purchased the Mallory Uni-lite (optical trigger) distributor. There are no external units to hook up and or mount, just the wires that go to the coil and batt. If you are interested in this unit, purchase it from Summit Racing. Their price is about $125.00 less, than from the usual Z parts suppliers. I did a little investigation, aquired the Mallory part number, and then ordered it from Summit Racing for about $375.00 . Delivery is no quicker, but $125.00 is $125.00. I'll go back through my receipts for the p/n and post it.

I believe the Mallory part number is MAL-4763901...

I had to look around to see where I wrote it down, as I plan on going the same route with one of my cars...

Thanks 2ManyZs for posting the part number for the Unilite. I'll check the number tonight and post tomorrow.

Todd has a couple Mallory's listed here(used) for a pretty good price. Wolf Creek Racing

So... (SER) you have a stock dizzy with the 700 replacing the points (and providing the EI??) AND you add a multi-spark thingy like the HI6 (or 6AL) to that? Or does the 700 box go away? This is part of what confuses me. True or False: A HI6or a 6AL will RUN an engine. Or is it just an addition to the EI from some other source?

Whether or not I need an EI 'base' to add an 'ignition enhancer' to will really help me decide which direction to go with the dizzy and EI itself.

See? I told you I was mussed up!

steve77

A 6AL will run an engine when interfaced with a coil & a triggering system (points, reluctor etc.).

My setup is somewhat more complex....

Bosch (large body) L-series 4-cyl dizzy, locked with custom hall-effect sensor & 6-cylinder rotor & cap. This triggers a Bosch ignitor via a Haltech E6A. But that hasn't got enough grunt to keep my spark burning, so it's basically just a driver for my MSD6A.

It works, and works well. Timing is controlled in software & once I put thermal shielding on the distributor I stopped cooking Hell effect sensors....