TheSamba.com :: View topic

Mon May 19, 2008 10:06 am

i am thinking of running a complete msd on my car, besides the price is there any other reason not to run it, how reliable ?

Mon May 19, 2008 10:18 am

I have the MSD 6AL and it's very "picky" (you can't have anything else at all connected to the coil, you need to add resistors, etc)
I also run their blaster 2 coil
I do not have their distributor but was told that if the box failed you are left walking. Also it's all analog (you use chips for the rev limiter)

If I was to do it again, I would go with a Mallory HyFire 6 box, it's all digital, no chips to buy for rev limiter just use the screen to set your desired RPM limit, it also has a built in 2 step, start retard, boost retard etc etc and their distributor has a bypass plug in case the box fails :)

Mon May 19, 2008 1:41 pm

I would not run MSD. Read the post by Eaallred on this thread and you'll see all the pros and cons.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=201614

Mon May 19, 2008 2:52 pm

x2 my MSD unit installed in a bus devloped some kind of corrosion habit and would make the electrodes on the cap fowl up; maybe something to do with venting or the atmosphere on the coast here. Now I have 2 Mallory units. Would still like to use my digital 6 with 2 step on the Malory unit, just havent gotten that far yet.

Mon May 19, 2008 3:13 pm

SkrapMetal, that is a Great Link, thanks!

Post is dated October 2006, it would be helpful if Eric or someone else in the “Know” could post an update, to let us know if there are new and better option out from MSD or Mallery…

Mon May 19, 2008 3:16 pm

We switched from MSD to Mallory after 3 MSD 6al failures in one season on the race car.The Mallory is now 3 seasons old.I will never use an MSD product again.No support,no warranty.Junk.If you want to see how poorly made an American product can be, take the cover off and look inside.You will NEVER make fun of a Chinese product again.

Mon May 19, 2008 5:55 pm

ok looks like msd ( is junk for vw's) what is the mallory set up to run box,coil,dist. info

Mon May 19, 2008 5:57 pm

The Noof wrote: .If you want to see how poorly made an American product can be, take the cover off and look inside.You will NEVER make fun of a Chinese product again.

Actually I have worked in the electronic industry since 1974 and I will most certainly make fun of Chinese electronics!

Granted, there are incompetent American companies as well. But by and large American companies are making a higher grade product that the Chinese or Japanese as a rule.

The last company I worked for started a Chinese division. What a NIGHTMARE! The Chinese were adept at doing what they were told. But if there was a problem they couldn't think for themselves. A problem that would take our design team 24 hours to solve would stop their production lines for 6 weeks. And when they decided to vary from the transformer blueprints to make them cheaper and faster, it nearly cost our company UL approval, which would have meant that we would have been in violation of our contracts and no other American or European company would buy from us and we would have been screwed.

Scott Novak

Mon May 19, 2008 6:36 pm

You might want to think about a Jacobs ignition system. Dr. Christopher Jacobs greatly advanced the electronic ignition system. Read his patents and you will understand just how much he improved things.

However, Jacobs marketing SUCKED and pissed off a lot of people. The company was sold twice and is now owned by Mr. Gasket. And since Mr. Gasket now has the rights to use the Jacobs patents, and Mr. Gasket owns Mallory, Mallory can use Jacobs patented ignition circuits.

As cheaply as you can buy Jacobs ignition systems on ebay, I highly recommend that you try one. However, I DON'T recommend any of their newer style ignition coils as Mr. Gasket screwed up the works and changed the ignition coil turns ratio to 100:1 which does NOT transfer as much power into the spark as the earlier Jacobs 60:1, 85:1, and 87:1 turns ratio ignition coils. I'd recommend buying a used or New old stock Jacobs Ultra torquer ignition coil.

The Ultra Torquer coil is only good for 4,400 RPM with an 8-cylinder engine. However, with a 4-cylinder engine is is good up to about 8,800 RPM. Not many racers are reving that high. When you design an ignition coil for higher RPM use, you have to reduce the spark energy that it is capable of putting out. But as the Ultra torquer coil is designed for lower RPM use it has the hottest spark of Jacobs ignition coils.

But even an older style Jacobs Ultra Coil, which is good for over 17,000 RPM on a 4 -cylinder engine, will out perform most other ignition coils on the market.

An older style Jacobs Ultra Coil will put out over 3 times more current than a Bosch Blue coil, into a 100,000 ohm load (which simulates a spark plug fouling condition). The Jacobs ignition system will keep your spark plug firing when many other brands won't.

For anyone still using a Bosch distributor, a Jacobs Mileage Master is probably your best choice. It's an inductive switcher that still has multi-sparking capability. It is capable of putting out more voltage than your distributor cap can handle. Your spark plug gap will limit the maximum voltage that the ignition coil can deliver. So you can open your gaps to maybe 0.040" with a 7.1:1 compression ratio. The Bosch distributor cap cannot handle much more than 28,000 volts before crossfiring or arc-over to the distributor body occurs.

I'm running a Mallory small cap distributor that is triggering a Jacobs Pro Street and Jacobs Ultra torquer coil, and I'm using 0.065" spark plug gaps. The Mileage Master also works well on my setup, but I wanted the built in RPM limiter that the Pro Street has. The Mallory small cap distributor can only handle about 32,500 volts before arc-over to the distributor body occurs. Even the entry level Jacobs Omni-Pak ignition system with the ignition ssytem built into the ignition coil case works great. Just don't by the 3 wire EZ-Trigger version. If you are buying an Omni-Pak, Omni-Torquer, of Omni-Magnum, ge the 6 wire versions. If you are buying any other Jacobs ignition system, make sure that it has the orange and purple twisted wire pair.

If you use a Mallory Comp 9000 distributor modified for 4-cylinder use, you can actually use a Pro Street to it's full advantage with even larger spark plug gaps. Or if you are using a much higher compression ratio or turbocharging, you won't need to reduce your spark plug gaps to fire the spark plugs. The Comp 9000 distributor cap will handle about 59,000 volts before crossfiring occurs. That's about the limit for any ignition coil that can still put out adequate spark current.

The Pro Street is capacitive Discharge and does not have a spark with as long of a duration as the Mileage Master, or Omni series. But it can put out higher voltage to the spark plugs when using huge spark plug gaps.

Left: Bosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Middle: Mallory Comp 9000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Right Mallory Small Cap

Scott Novak

Mon May 19, 2008 6:41 pm

So far we don't know if he's talking about a daily driver, weekend cruiser or a all out track car.

Without knowing the application there's no sense in making a recommendation.

Mon May 19, 2008 6:56 pm

I second the Jacobs. I have the "bug pack" ignition system on my car. I've run it for 3+ yrs with no probc.

Mon May 19, 2008 8:18 pm

The "Bug Pak" is actually just an Omni-Pak or an Omni-Torquer packaged with a set of Jacobs spark plug wires for a Beetle. I think that JC Whitney also sold a Jacobs Mileage Master packaged with VW spark plug wires and called it a "Bug Pak".

It will give nearly full output to 8,800 RPM on a 4 Cylinder engine.

The only irritating thing is that some of the "Bug Paks" came with the EZ Trigger version that was designed to leave your original ignition coil connected. The EZ Trigger versions require a negative voltage spike to trigger. You need an inductor of some sort to develop this negative voltage spike. You can derive this negative voltage spike from the original ignition coil.

It's just much easier to buy the standard NON-EZ-Trigger version that will trigger from points, or Unilite, Pertronix or Compufire ignition module. Then you can get rid of the stock ignition coil, which is one less part to fail.

While the Omni-Paks normally sell for around $75 used, I've paid as little as $25 and I know of one guy that paid $8 at a swap meet.

As engines with distributors are becoming more rare, there is a glut of used electronic ignitions on the market and the prices are fairly cheap. I keep a spare Jacobs ignition computer and Jacobs ignition coil in my trunk.

Jacobs ignition systems are quite reliable as long as you mount them in a cool place. Nothing destroys electronics faster than excessive heat.

At least with the older Jacobs ignition computer and ignition coils were rated for vibrations of 75 Gs. Your typical oil filled ignition could like the stock Bosch would be lucky if it can handle 8 Gs of vibrational force. The new Jacobs ignition computers are probably good for nearly 75 Gs of force or more, but I haven't seen the specs yet, so I don't know for sure.

I highly recommend Jacobs ignitions for Daily Drivers as well as race vehicles. With the exception of the Jacobs ICE Pak. When it works it's great. But I think it has reliability problems, and I won't use one or sell one.

Scott Novak

Mon May 19, 2008 8:48 pm

SkrapMetal wrote: I would not run MSD. Read the post by Eaallred on this thread and you'll see all the pros and cons.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=201614

At first I read this and thought "Oh man, what did I say in that thread?" LOL.

But reading through it, I must have had some spare time on my hands because frankly, I OWNED that one! LOL

Yea, my Mallory stuff is still running strong. No issues whatsoever since 2003. Never touch it unless i'm changing rev limiter settings in the staging lanes.

Mon May 19, 2008 10:49 pm

what is the mallory set up consist of? which box coil and dist.

Tue May 20, 2008 6:42 am

norcalracer wrote: what is the mallory set up consist of? which box coil and dist.

Kind of whatever you want.

I have the 685 CDI that has all the features at a push of a button with the display on it, the unilite distributor with vacuum advance, and the Promaster coil.

But there are a lot of combo's you can run.