Electronic ignition
Discussion
For the last 30 years, the 1700 Ford Crossflow in my Caterham has ran happily with an Alden distributor, points and condenser.
I have pondered over the winter about installing electronic ignition. I'm wondering in reality what the benefits will be, if any. It's been totally reliable for 30 years. Am I likely to get any performance improvements? What's the best kit for a Crossflow? Back 30+ years ago Luminition was the one to go to, is it still?
Thanks
I have pondered over the winter about installing electronic ignition. I'm wondering in reality what the benefits will be, if any. It's been totally reliable for 30 years. Am I likely to get any performance improvements? What's the best kit for a Crossflow? Back 30+ years ago Luminition was the one to go to, is it still?
Thanks
I have Luminition Optronic ignition in both my classics, an S4 Elan and TR6 and also in my Westfield sprint car (Lotus twin cam powered) They have proved 100% reliable of the last 15 years or so. I believe that having a remote amplifier makes the system less susceptible to heat issues that can lead to problems with the smaller units contained wholly within the distributer.
It depends what you mean by electronic ignition, are you talking about elec points in existing coil and dissy, or a ecu based 3d mappable and coilpack?
Switched my CVH engined westy from dissy+points to a megajolt, which cost about £150 at time (ten years ago) and was one of the best changes made to the car.
Chucked a £10 trigger wheel onto the crank pulley, literally just took the bolt out and replaced it posted through the trigger wheel, very basic bracket to hold a secondhand sensor of ebay, timed it up by eye against the oem timing marks, made a spindle adapter for a throttle pot in 15mins on a borrowed lathe. Wired it up in about 20minutes, second hand edis and coil pack (make sure you get the edis plug), mid-spec ebay ht lead, and ran a map I downloaded of another cvh user, ecu on the scuttle in a £4 box from maplin. Even managed to get the ECU unused from a guy who kept a spare for his race car for 60% of the new cost. Fit and forget 8 years.
My dissy was a bit shot, never had it on a rolling road but I do think it made a mild difference to the drivability of the car, however the real difference was in cold and hot start performance. Which went from a bit slow even if the battery was well charged, to first time every time even if it was red hot, a bit flat, or had generally been sitting for a while.
Will be interesting to see others comments.
Daniel
Switched my CVH engined westy from dissy+points to a megajolt, which cost about £150 at time (ten years ago) and was one of the best changes made to the car.
Chucked a £10 trigger wheel onto the crank pulley, literally just took the bolt out and replaced it posted through the trigger wheel, very basic bracket to hold a secondhand sensor of ebay, timed it up by eye against the oem timing marks, made a spindle adapter for a throttle pot in 15mins on a borrowed lathe. Wired it up in about 20minutes, second hand edis and coil pack (make sure you get the edis plug), mid-spec ebay ht lead, and ran a map I downloaded of another cvh user, ecu on the scuttle in a £4 box from maplin. Even managed to get the ECU unused from a guy who kept a spare for his race car for 60% of the new cost. Fit and forget 8 years.
My dissy was a bit shot, never had it on a rolling road but I do think it made a mild difference to the drivability of the car, however the real difference was in cold and hot start performance. Which went from a bit slow even if the battery was well charged, to first time every time even if it was red hot, a bit flat, or had generally been sitting for a while.
Will be interesting to see others comments.
Daniel
If you mean you electronic dissy replacement, with a cheap comprehensive kit such as Megajolt as mentioned above, another benefit over the previous commenters’ is the timing is measured from the crank, whereas the drive gears for the dissy have backlash, so the timing changes depending on load / overrun 👍
Skyedriver said:
For the last 30 years, the 1700 Ford Crossflow in my Caterham has ran happily with an Alden distributor, points and condenser.
I have pondered over the winter about installing electronic ignition. I'm wondering in reality what the benefits will be, if any. It's been totally reliable for 30 years. Am I likely to get any performance improvements? What's the best kit for a Crossflow? Back 30+ years ago Luminition was the one to go to, is it still?
Thanks
If it's been totally reliable for you for 30 years....what are you hoping to gain ?I have pondered over the winter about installing electronic ignition. I'm wondering in reality what the benefits will be, if any. It's been totally reliable for 30 years. Am I likely to get any performance improvements? What's the best kit for a Crossflow? Back 30+ years ago Luminition was the one to go to, is it still?
Thanks
Do you want more performance ? It seems you cannot gain reliability, as it has not been unreliable.
Are you doing anything else with the car ?
Skyedriver said:
Was thinking the replacement of points with trigger wheel and retaining dizzy & coil
Yes it was a performance increase I was wondering about.
Thanks
Going for a crank trigger and mappable ignition could yield benefits. Although it would be better to dump the dizzy if doing that.Yes it was a performance increase I was wondering about.
Thanks
Most aspects would be DIY'able, but to release those gains, ideally it would need all setup and tuned on a rolling road, which is a further expense.
And overall..the gains would not be massive.
When they were still common in scrapyards, I scavenged a electronic distributor and amplifier from a Valencia engined Mk2 Fiesta.
It fitted straight into the normal RWD crossflow block and although it didn't seem to make any more power, it made starting noticeably better (first turn of the engine) and ended the adjustment and replacement of points forever.
It fitted straight into the normal RWD crossflow block and although it didn't seem to make any more power, it made starting noticeably better (first turn of the engine) and ended the adjustment and replacement of points forever.
Unless going to a mapped ignition system I would leave what you have in place , even back in the day I was spinning up a X Flow to 7.5k rpm regular on a Piranha optical set-up no vac dizzy but still using bob weights and suffered no issues before going over to a Micro Dynamics system for the better control lot of money for little gain IIRC this was a road car , previous to this I was using the same Lucas side entry dizzy on points with no issues either
Edited by Zener on Thursday 13th February 13:23
I put my Lotus TC on 3D distributorless/wasted spark ignition using a Megajolt, Ford EDIS and coil pack with a crack trigger wheel and TPS on the carb spindle.
It transformed the car and is well worth doing in my experience. My main motivation was to get rid of the dizzy below the twin 40's as I was always paranoid about fires in a fibreglass car (Elan). It used to start instantly first turn of the key even after a 3-4 week lay up and idled and ran beautifully.
If you don't fancy that much work I have a full Lumenition kit or a Pirahna kit spare which came off a TC and would be ideal for a crossie
It transformed the car and is well worth doing in my experience. My main motivation was to get rid of the dizzy below the twin 40's as I was always paranoid about fires in a fibreglass car (Elan). It used to start instantly first turn of the key even after a 3-4 week lay up and idled and ran beautifully.
If you don't fancy that much work I have a full Lumenition kit or a Pirahna kit spare which came off a TC and would be ideal for a crossie
Going the Megajolt route would appear to be around £5-600. Best option but is it necessary I wonder.
Msybe the Lumenition system from Lotobear although as comments above, is it worth it when the points/condenser set up seems to work.
Any yes, the dizzy under the webers is a bit of a pain. Take the dizzy out the check the points.....
Msybe the Lumenition system from Lotobear although as comments above, is it worth it when the points/condenser set up seems to work.
Any yes, the dizzy under the webers is a bit of a pain. Take the dizzy out the check the points.....
Megajolt ECU seems to be around £200 these days? Rest of the bits maybe £100?
Depending on what this one goes for....
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184165023538
Daniel
Depending on what this one goes for....
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184165023538
Daniel
PaulKemp said:
Megajolt come in 2 flavours
TPS or MAP
if your running MAP, which I prefer, you need to use a vacuum takeoff, if your running twin 40’s a takeoff per runner is recommended with a small plenum to take the pulses out.
Indeed so.TPS or MAP
if your running MAP, which I prefer, you need to use a vacuum takeoff, if your running twin 40’s a takeoff per runner is recommended with a small plenum to take the pulses out.
I forget the details of the merits of each, but it went with TPS, which appears more common. Cemented by acquiring said 'new unused' TPS unit including hard cut rev limiter module for about half price.
Daniel
PaulKemp said:
Megajolt come in 2 flavours
TPS or MAP
if your running MAP, which I prefer, you need to use a vacuum takeoff, if your running twin 40’s a takeoff per runner is recommended with a small plenum to take the pulses out.
Thanks for the info, TPS or MAP
if your running MAP, which I prefer, you need to use a vacuum takeoff, if your running twin 40’s a takeoff per runner is recommended with a small plenum to take the pulses out.
Being trapped in the 20th Century I'm totally out of touch with the above. Will read up. I assume mapped will give a better result but tapping the manifold 4 times then adding a plenum sounds overkill for what I am hoping for.
My Megajolt set up cost around £350 all in ISTR. The base map was fine but a local rolling road tweaked it for £50.
I bought the MJ in kit from from the US for around £80 then a guy built it for me for around £15 (a geeky chap off a forum who builds them for fun cos he likes it!)
A TPS is preferred over a MAP sensor and is much simpler than tapping the inlets and using a plenum. I had to make up an adapter and bracket for the end of the throttle spindle but they can be bought from the usual suspects. Getting a tach signal was a bit tricky but I resloved it in the end.
I Jury rigged it before the body went on - note TPS on end of carbs
I bought the MJ in kit from from the US for around £80 then a guy built it for me for around £15 (a geeky chap off a forum who builds them for fun cos he likes it!)
A TPS is preferred over a MAP sensor and is much simpler than tapping the inlets and using a plenum. I had to make up an adapter and bracket for the end of the throttle spindle but they can be bought from the usual suspects. Getting a tach signal was a bit tricky but I resloved it in the end.
I Jury rigged it before the body went on - note TPS on end of carbs
Use a TPS setup then.
You can get complete kits for £80 odd from the likes of webcon/eurocarb, I just made mine which looks like the one above and or at the end the thread in the below link, else emerald appear to a basic spindle adapter for a few quid.
https://www.alfabb.com/threads/throttle-position-s...
http://www.emeraldm3d.com/spindle-adapter-tps.html
https://www.webcon.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=9948
Daniel
You can get complete kits for £80 odd from the likes of webcon/eurocarb, I just made mine which looks like the one above and or at the end the thread in the below link, else emerald appear to a basic spindle adapter for a few quid.
https://www.alfabb.com/threads/throttle-position-s...
http://www.emeraldm3d.com/spindle-adapter-tps.html
https://www.webcon.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=9948
Daniel
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