[Fot] MSD box

[Jim Gray]

We had the exact same problem on one of our spits without MSD in Colorado.
“When I pull either #1 or #4 plug wire she runs fine, dips down a bit in
RPM, but if I pull #2 or #3 she almost dies” 

We didn’t move the timing light sensor wire around though.

We have another spitfire that did one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever
seen. We were trying to sort out another ignition miss problem and decided
it wasn’t going to get fixed at that moment.

Dan, the owner decided to put it back in his pit, put the hood down and
fired it up. It seemed to run a bit worse than when we started so the hood
came back up while it was running.

The distributor cap didn’t get put back on and it was running! The cap
wasn’t even close to the distributor, it was almost a foot away and you
could see the arc dancing all over the inside of the cap. If someone had
told me that story and I hadn’t seen it for myself I would have called BS.

All I can say is that was one hot coil, how it fired in any kind of order
that would allow it to run is still beyond my understanding.

As far as why a car will still seem to run unaffected by pulling #’s 1 or 4
is still a puzzle to me.

Some people actually have success with an adjustable timing light on and MSD
equipped car ( if that’s what your using ) I never did. MSD say’s no. I had
to go back to 

a fixed timing light because the timing was all over the place, hence the
dual spark up to 3K rpm.

Even with the fixed timing light I had trouble timing the car at the Kastner
Cup at Road America. The MSD unit completely failed the next weekend out.
Now I keep a spare in the box.

The point I’m getting at is in this case it might not be the MSD box since
we had the same problem with a non-MSD car.

jim g

 

 

  _____  

From: Fot [mailto:fot-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Steve Smith via
Fot
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2015 7:07 PM
To: don at dcphotos.com; FOT at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Fot] MSD box

 

I've seen that exact issue on a very fast TR4.  Drove us nuts until we tried
a new box.  They will repair it very cheaply as I recall. 

 

Remember how NASCAR's always have TWO on board??

 





-----Original Message-----
From: don--- via Fot <fot at autox.team.net>
To: fot <fot at autox.team.net>
Sent: Mon, Apr 6, 2015 4:55 pm
Subject: [Fot] MSD box

This Spitfire that was “pawned” off on me has a MSD Digital 6A box in it. 

 

When I pull either #1 or #4 plug wire she runs fine, dips down a bit in RPM,
but if I pull #2 or #3 she almost dies. 

 

I put my timing gun on #1 wire, she fires at 15 °BTDC and same if I put the
timing gun sensor 

on the #4 wire. 

 

When I put the sensor on either #2 or #3 wire, it shows it firing all over
the place, them seem to settle down to 15°btdc 

and then goes crazy again, settles down.  

 

Not sure if this is the MSD box or not but I thought I might get some
answers here. 

 

I did find that the rotor cap was dragging on the Pertronix Ignitor module
inside the distributor. I swapped out rotor caps but still no luck. 

 

Don 

 

DON COUCH PHOTOGRAPHY 

(512)-680-3540 

 

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