Yesterday my Mallory Hyfire box in my 31 Pontiac crapped out for the second time. What ignition boxes do you all use and recomend? Thx Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I"ve heard some not so good things about the newer MSD Digital 6AL boxes. But the 25 year old 6A in my 55 keeps on chuggin away. My latest go fast car has an old mallory dual point. No box. Goes fast. Just to show the kids how it used to be done.
what is the advantage of the box? less use of points? Hotter spark? I have a dual point in my car, and I know how fast Squirrel's car goes with his... thanks
Mostly it's to keep the spark the same without having to maintain points. If you use an electronic trigger, like most all cars made in the past 40 years, then you don't have to ever mess with points. But if you have points, and you have an amplifier box, it reduces the current load on the points, so they won't get pitted as quickly. An amplifier will also give you a hotter spark, if it's a CDI type ignition, so it can avoid misfiring under tough conditions. CDI ignitions have an electronic power supply that increases the voltage to the coil, so it gets more than 12v.
Well I am a Mallory man to the core. I am not a fan of their Hyfire ignition, I would use an MSD box and make my decision of which one based on my engine regulation needs IE retards base on RPM or boost or rev limits based on how many and what increments and etc. MSD makes a good box, yes they fail all things electronic do but they don't fail very often and they are accurate.
@Kerry are you sure it's the box that is bad? I'm not doubting you but I just wanted to add a personal experience here that might be helpful. I had a hyfire ign box hooked up to a Mallory distributor. All brand new parts. My car would sporadically lose the crank signal and shut off. After I would "fake trigger" the crank with a wire a few times, it would start back up, until eventually it crapped out altogether. I checked my distributor with an ohm meter while it wasn't starting and found that it read "open circuit". I called Mallory and they claimed that the distributor pickup failed and it was because I had a battery charger hooked up with the distributor connected. so I had to replace the pickup, which was fairly simple, but irritating on a brand new part. After that no more problems, and no more battery chargers with the distributor connected.
I'm usually not a fan of buying used electronics but a guy I knew was going back to old school on his Roadster and I bought his MSD set up for $200. The box was a 6BTM intended for a blower application and had a rubber tube coming out of the box to measure blower boost and retard the timing as the boost came up. I called the Tech line at MSD and they said it would work fine for normal aspiration so I bought a few new parts for the distributor and was up and running for less than $300. It works well and the advantage I see is it creates sparks for a full 20# of crank rotation. They also make a rotor that the pointer is adjustable so you can rotate the distributor cap to align the pointer exactly with the contact for the plug wire. I thought about that for awhile and it would make a difference if your cam timing was changed or you were tuning for max timing. Check out the MSD website and watch the short videos, very informative.
used analog ( solid state ) Msd 5-8 series with no problems , have seen others have problems with the digital units ( microprocessor ) being fincky with unfiltered power and they do not like half waves in the power infeeds ( battery chargers ) , since I like the lower costs and see no real advantage of the digital units I stay away from them . as for mallory never had problems with there stuff other than a supplier for parts so I kind of stayed away from them . and yes unilites do not like voltage spikes or any welding near them .
Have used msd for years up to and including blown drag cars 1800 hp +. Never had a problem and their tech service was excellent.
There was a magazine article some time ago (maybe HRM ?) about fake electronic components on the market. Could you have gotten one of the fakes ???
I like the MSD stuff, but I haven't had any of the digital units. The main advantage is the elimination of the points. Even if actual coil switching is done with electronics, you still have wear involved. And you can run much hotter coils without worrying about point life.
Never had any trouble with MSD products. One race car has a Crane dist. and box and also works great. I'll be installing a digital 6 and retard controller in the other race car as soon as the engine is done Any welding done on a vehicle with electronic ignition should have the both batt terminals disconnected. I do this regardless of ignition type. I used to build fire trucks and this was mandatory procedure even though they all were diesel powered. Easy way for smoke to escape the electrical system.
I like the Ford thick film module. Less than half the size of MSD, certain models come with a cool finned aluminum heat sink. They work with points or electronic ignition. Makes great sparks. I have got them for $5 to $20 at swap meets and junk yards. Get the Ford coil while you are at it, you will never lack for sparks again. The old original Chrysler orange box works great too, but it is 1970 technology.
I bought a Professional Prodcuts 'Powerfire' for my Olds to match their distributor and hopefully work with Accel afterburner coil. Only time will tell.
Added to that, you put the ground clamp as close to where you are welding as possible, to minimize the risk of welding current going through something it shouldn't (such as ground wires in the cars wiring, if they happen to be the path of least resistance). Also, keep clear of the wiring harness. The magnetic field caused by the welding current induces voltage in any metal around it. Basically, the wires can act as antennas and transfer that (possibly) high voltage to whatevers connected to the other end, say a expensive car stereo or the electronic ignition/fuel injection "brain". There's another just about fool proof method to protect sensitive electronic devices from welding damage. Pull the plug out of the device, and there's nothing there to transfer damaging electricity to it anymore. Unless you put the ground clamp on the housing, that is. On a modern car it would be impossible to protect all electronic devices that way, there are way too many, but on a classic car with a handful of electronic updates such as ignition it should be a quick job - especially if you only bother with the expensive stuff, or the stuff you need working to drive home from the garage once you're done working on the car. Or you could go oldschool and O/A weld everything.
Thanks for the responses guys. I should add some more detail. Some 12 years ago when I got her running I used the oem dual point to trigger a Mallory Hyfire 6a box. When I switched from the Strombergs to the blower and AFB's I also switched to a Pertronix igniter for a trigger. Not long after that I added an MSD boost timing retard. When it wouldn't fire I took the dist out of the picture and tried to just ground the trigger wire but got no fire. Next I took the boost timing retart out of the mix, still no fire. At that point I gave up, got a ride home to get the trailer. It's entirely possible that it isn't just the box. I will probably switch back to the points as it's just more foolproof. Funny that it's the modern crap that fails.
I've been running a MSD Streetfire box on my roadster for the last 6 yrs... no problems until this morning. Was going to take it to the airport but just got out of the driveway and it quit... no spark. I've got to do some trouble-shooting but may just eliminate the box.
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