MSD Ignition

[Mufflerbearing 0]

I just installed a MSD 6AL box and MSD distributor in the Mach 1. It stared and ran great for about a week now the box failed(no spark):angry: Is this a common problem with these ignition boxes? Thinking of going back to the old Autolite. Any one else run it to this problem? Gotta love the AAA Car club towing!!!:thumbup:

[Spoofty 10]

My 6AL lasted about 5 years.

[coz 108]

smoked the 1st AL6 after 6 months. Replaced it - been ok for about 8 months but I now am having an electrical problem. Not sure if it's the AL6 yet.

[bswor 76]

Thats not reassuring since i have one waiting to be installed.

[Spoofty 10]

My 6AL lasted about 5 years.

 

Well 2 of those years the car was in storage. I probably only did 3500 miles on it.

[Pakrat 1,043]

Yeah I agree, doesn't sound reassuring at all. Weren't these supposed to be like the a super deluxe option to a simple pertronix too? And for a heftier price to boot? I'm starting to be glad I made the choice I did after reading this.

[Cupid 10]

What do you suggest? Petronix and call it a day? Replace the whole distributor with an electronic type? Without the box or without the box.... I have to do this in a month or two and was wondering if it is even worth putting a 6AL in.

 

Pakrat, what decision did you make?

[bnickel 10,004]

i've known a lot of people that have had 6al boxes and never had any trouble with them at all, even after 8-10 years. i used to work at super shops and sold a ton of mallory hy-fire boxes and never had a single come back. i did see a lot of popped unilite modules though several were mine even. the unilite i have now has been in the car for a very long time with no problems at all. i think it was just a bad batch or two that caused that problem, probably the same thing with the MSD boxes.

[Pakrat 1,043]

What do you suggest? Petronix and call it a day? Replace the whole distributor with an electronic type? Without the box or without the box.... I have to do this in a month or two and was wondering if it is even worth putting a 6AL in.

 

Pakrat, what decision did you make?

 

At the time with the main goal being simply something more reliable and retaining the stock appearance I went with the pertronix kit and the flame thrower coil. I've been nothing but happy with it. True it does not scream performance or anything but it was so ridiculously simple to install. And just in case it ever does conk out on me I keep my old dual points and condensor in the trunk so I can do an easy roadside swap and be back on my way home.

[Cupid 10]

Saweet! Thanks. I was out on the road and was noticing some missing at higher RPM. Couple that with hard starting and poor gas mileage, and i've about had enough. I think this is the route i'm going.

[Mufflerbearing 0]

Up-date,

I unpluged all of the connections cleaned them and reconnected them. And well-lla It's now working. Well let's see how long?

[bnickel 10,004]

good to hear

[dlinebar 2]

I swapped to pertronix about a year ago as well, no issues, runs great....go for it. Dead simple and it works.

[buening 63]

I saw in one of the mustang or ford magazine websites where they did an ignition box comparison on the same motor on a dyno. The Accel 300+ produced the most horsepower, MSD 6AL came in second, Mallory VI-AL came in third, and the Crane HI-6 came fourth. We are talking a few horsepower between the two though. I found it in the Accel catalog but they reference May 2002 issue of Car Craft Magazine. http://go.mrgasket.com/pdf/digital_ignsys.pdf

 

Here is a link on StangNet of a discussion about MSD boxes and the Accel failures and a praise for the HI-6. I'm leaning toward getting a HI-6 box, but have yet forked over the cash as of yet.

 

 

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=551806

 

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=530394

[Mufflerbearing 0]

Update: Disconnected all the connections and cleaned them and reassembled them. She fired up. Let's see for how long. I hope it was just a loose wire. Don't get me wrong my other MSD digital boxes work great. Thanks for the help.

[69GT 0]

I have the MSD6AL and its been good to me since day 1. No problems at all.

[coz 108]

related question - with the electronic iginitons we all seem to have - what do you gap your plugs at? I run Champion 24's (a bit of a cool plug) and gap them at .045 (stock is .035). I've heard of guys gapping plugs out to .080 - whats up with that????

[bnickel 10,004]

with a pretronix or unilite conversion anything along those lines i run the stock .035 gap. with a much hotter coil like an MSD blaster or the like i'll open it up .045. with an MSD 6AL or other CD ignition box i'd run as high as .060 gap. now if the car was blown, turbo'd, or on the bottle i'd then close the gap back up to .035.

 

the only way i could see running an .080 plug gap would be with a like an MSD Digital 7 box and a crank trigger ignition system

[351carlo 10]

Ignition system....

 

I started with points, and of course moved on to Pertronix like everyone else. My first upgrade was an Ignitor II and one of those big yellow box Accel Coils. The Ignitor II was great, simply an awesome upgrade for the car. Unfortunately the limitation was the stock distributor it was in, and the fact that whoever rebuilt it did a really bad job. I got another distributor but couldn't get the timing right still.

 

Moved on to my first MSD 6AL box. Ran great, got rid of a dead spot I had right around 5200 (I would shift this motor at 6100 or so). Of course with the 6AL I moved to a Mallory, but a magnetic breakerless Comp S/S 32 series Mallory. I wasn't a fan of the unilite design, but it could just be my bias. Car ran great until a bad trip down the highway, box died. I later diagnosed it as my own personal error. I had used a stock ignition line, and my engine harness wires were just too brittle, it had separated and shorted out on the valve covers, frying the box.

 

Bought another 6al new (the first one was used, and didn't look good to begin with). Ran great for a few months, but then died unexpectedly. Still no good diagnosis on this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was electrical system issue (I just finished ironing out the problems my car had, most were concealed). Anyway, when this went I traded my 6al for a Digital 6 plus.

 

I'm one of those dumb people who feels the need to have 650 horsepower in a car that they drive once a week. So the Digital 6+ gave me the ability to automatically pull timing when the nitrous was activated. Boy is that cool. When the Window switch gets in the proper RPM, the nitrous sprays and my timing gets backed down. It's great because I don't lose the horsepower from pulling timing when I'm on motor. Of course there is the two step, max RPM limit, and I think I'm even missing other features.

 

Anyway, just figured I'd throw my own experience up. I think my increase in overall performance was due to the good distributor and not the MSD as much.

[Mufflerbearing 0]

I run a autolite plug @.45 With the electronic ignition it's recommended that up open the gap a little. This to take advantage of the better spark.

[JC69Stang 0]

Ran a 6AL and it burned up, bought a Holley and burned it up.

 

I have run 2 Jacobs Electronics boxes. Both bought before they were bought out by Mr.Gasket.

the Mileage Master box still powers a 428CJ in a 4X4. It is at least 12 years old now.

I run a Pro Street box and have had it for years. Never ever a single problem. run a MSD Dist and like it.

[351carlo 10]

Oh, I forgot to mention the spark plug gaps that I've found reasonable.

 

Stock, well gap them stock. .035-.040 generally worked well for me with points.

 

Electronic Ignition- Pertronix and a good coil- 0.040-.045

 

MSD Setup- I've only ever run .050 max. The larger spark is supposed to be better for the motor, but I just didn't like a big gap. It was nothing scientific or quantifiable though.

 

MSD Setup while running nitrous. .032-.034. Yea, small gap, big spark. I have the Digital 6+ box, a good 29440 Mallory Coil, and some Accel 9000 wires. Need to make sure that spark doesn't get blown out.

[coz 108]

Took the time to look over the ignition setup and found a couple of minor but important things. There was a brass washer missing on one coil post. With it I think you get better contact so I found a replacement.

 

More importantly, the ground for the setup was going to my valve cover stud and it was only hand tight. My engine has quite a bit of a lope (whole car actually) so I need to retighten every so often. I really need to relocate the ground from the stud but the wire is too short. When I have a couple minutes I'll splice it and move it to the block. Also need to add a ground strap from the block to the chassis.

 

However, the good news - no 4k miss. The bad boy pulls to 6k (rev limit) w/o problems. Hold tight baby she's really moving out now. Nothing like a 6k 100 ft tire spin right into a 3.5k second gear shift sideways for another 100 ft..... Yeah I know hooking up is where it's at and she can do that too but if you crack her open ---- you better hold on!

 

Next up - FPT headers and Magnaflow exhaust and tranny work.

[Mufflerbearing 0]

Dead Again!!!! So I'm going to pull the MSD stuff and go back to the Petronic set up. I swaped out the coils just to make sure nothing. I'll have to send the 6AL box back to MSD. Dam this is frustrating.