Ignition box needed with EFI?

[Scottieg85]

Hey guys, I have a question pertaining to the ECU/Ignition box. I have a 440 which had an MSD system but was “upgraded” to an edelbrock EFI system. I was tearing out the MSD system today because the wire mess was driving me crazy. As I was going through the harnesses I came to a wire going from the ballast resistor (left side) to the ignition box/ECU. This was the only wire that was connected to anything from it, the rest of the wires were disconnected or dead ended. I unplugged the plug from the ECU and the car still started (other than the battery being dead and needing a jump, she started right up and seems to run fine. Is there any need to the ECU with the EFI hooked up? Thanks in advance!

 

[pishta]

any EFI system worth its weight in gold (as most cost that much) will have ignition built in to control advance, retard and various other things....its cheap to implement and almost needed in a SEFI (none of you TBI boys have that) as cam and crank timing are already a known value. Megasquirt had spark added (MSnS) as only a minor hardware and firmware update.

 

[Scottieg85]

any EFI system worth its weight in gold (as most cost that much) will have ignition built in to control advance, retard and various other things....its cheap to implement and almost needed in a SEFI (none of you TBI boys have that) as cam and crank timing are already a known value. Megasquirt had spark added (MSnS) as only a minor hardware and firmware update.

So I do not need the oem ECU then?

 

[pishta]

no, its just a mag amplifier/switch to ground the coil. It is mis-named as an ECU as there is no "control" in it (brain) except its control over the ground switching of the coil..edit, it does do some dwell stuff buts its minimal.