Need help with Electronic Ignition

Disagree!

The mopar ecu is a very simple electronic switch that functions the same as the points do. Everytime one of the reluctor teeth pass by the pick-up, the circuit from the coil to ground is opened resulting in the field in the coil primary collapsing. This creates a high voltage potential on the coil secondary resulting in a spark at the plug.

What does happen in the mopar ecu as with every other simple electronic ignition or points is;

The ignition coil takes a finite amount of time for the current flow through the primaries to saturate the secondary windings, you need complete saturation to get max output from the coil.

In the point days this was expressed as dwell angle or the number of dgrees the points were closed. Problem with degrees is the saturation of the coil is time dependent and as the rpm increases the time the current is flowing decreases (i.e., 30 degrees at 1000 rpm is takes longer than 30 degrees at 5000 rpm). This results in the potential in the secondaries to make a spark goes down just as the need increases.

So the coil that can generate 40K volts at 1000 rpm may only be able to generate 20K volts at 5000rpm. If you only need 17K volts to jump a spark then you are OK but in a performance engine you may need 22K do to higher compression or a higher rpm shift point. This results in miss fires.

The orange, chrome and gold ecu's extend the dwell time by the use of better and faster acting parts. They also have lower losses that result in more current flow that increases the potential across the rpm range. The down side with the chrome and gold especially is more heat is generated in the coil which can reduce it's life.

This is the reason that the mopar ecu's are advertised to support higher rpm ranges.