Need help with Electronic Ignition

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Joe A

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I have a 69 340 Dart Swinger. I put in a electronic Ingnition and i have been having problems with it. The car will start and run at an idle, but as soon as i try to give it gas it will not respond. I have recheck the timing, carb, orange ECU box and wiring. I even went as so far as to disconect everything and place the old distributor back to the way it was and it fire right up with no problems. Help please

joe
 
Please expalin "will not respond" that would help.

You mentioned you checked the orange box. How did you do that? If you took it to your local auto parts store and they checked it on their machine it may have tested good but been bad. I had a new conversion kit that wouldn't run worth crap (idled rough and misfired when I gave it gas) and it was a bad orange box but the box tested good on the local auto parts stores tester.

Something else easy to check is the reluctor (pickup coil) gap. Should be about .008-.010 if I remember right. If the reluctor gap is off if won't run right.

When you set the timing you did unplug the vacuum advance didn't you? Your supposed too.
 
The engine would backfire when i gave it gas and not accelerate. Runs rough at an idle. I took a ecu that works from another car that i have but got same result. I replaced the reluctor (pick-up coil) and gaped it at .008. I am puzzle. Yes on the unplug of vaccum.
 
i cant realy help whit your problem but i would like to know if anyone else has had problems with the orange box not being capable of working properly when it starts to get hot in the enginecompartment?
 
I had an orange box about a month after installing it start to go bad. The car became very hard to start and finally wouldn't run at all. I have jeard lots of stories about the orange ECU's not having the same level of QC as stock ignition parts.

If you feel you really need the higher rpm capability of the Orange ecu I would suggest ordering the hi-output ecu from Standard.

Joe, have you checked to make sure the mechanical advance mechanisom inside the electronic distibutor is not hanging up? Also make sure you have a full 12v source powering the ecu, it should be powerd off the coil side of the ballast resistor. This seems to be a common mistake people make wiring these up.
 
Be sure to use a brass feeler gauge when checking the air gap. So that the reluctor does not become magnitized. This would interfere with the magnetic field of the pick up coil.
 
Boy i will tell you i am not having any luck. Went out this morning after getting off of work and i am about to rip out the hole damm thing out. I went out and got a new distributor and it still does the same thing. Went over the wiring again and again. Black to the coil - side of coil, blue to the balastis + side and green nowhere. Check volts good. Should i change my voltage reg to a new version or just go with a MSD with my old points distributor. F$$$ing fustratrated.

joe
 
hm, I made the same conversion 2 months ago and had similar probs. Engine starts and dies 2 seconds later. I found these failures:

forgot to plug a hole in the carb baseplate. (vacuum leak)
had to plug the reluctor/ecu cable vice versa (dont know why - never cutted a cable)

now its cool...
 
Hi,
Just wanted to let everyone know thanks for all your help. I finally fix the problem. It all came doen to a $14.00 coil. The old coil would fire up the points distributor but not the new eletronic one. :lol: I will soon be going to have the car dyno in at a local shop. I guess never give up to you tried every little thing. MOPAR OR NO CAR.

Thanks again to all

joe :cheers:
 
Those orange box's are total crap! They take alot of timing out as the rpms go up. Your better off with the chrome box. Better yet with the FBO kit. Way better.
4secondsflat.com
 
The only difference between the stock, orange, chrome and gold ecu's is how many rpm's they can support. None of them have the ability to change the timing. All of your timing is controlled by the advance curve built into the distributor.

If you never shift your car over 5k rpm's then you will not get and performance improvement from the orange, chrome or gold ecu's.
 
dgc333 said:
The only difference between the stock, orange, chrome and gold ecu's is how many rpm's they can support. None of them have the ability to change the timing. All of your timing is controlled by the advance curve built into the distributor.

If you never shift your car over 5k rpm's then you will not get and performance improvement from the orange, chrome or gold ecu's.
Click to expand...

That is absolutely wrong! They do take out timing as the RPMs go up.http://4secondsflat.com/FBO_Ignition_Warranty.html
 
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.
 
Disagree, disagree. LOL! I'm not alone.

http://www.moparchat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85412&highlight=orange+timing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------quote from moparchat

Your orange box is retarding the timing...watch it as you load it on the Dyno it'll fall off like a brick and the output will drop right along with it.

MP Cam, Orange box, Holley with a 40 year old design and new paint Avenger....ever think about trying something that didn't come out of a magazine article?

You'll always have trouble with that ignition, call Don at FBO he's got a special right now on his stuff...works great dozens of cars around here run it and it flawless.......


I supose we willl have to agree to disagree. I have heard too many people say they do pull timing and drop cylinders. Don @ FBP has tested them all with most all the coils in all diferant combos to find the truth.

They are junk and not even worth the $.
 
70Barracuda said:
MP Cam, Orange box, Holley with a 40 year old design and new paint Avenger....ever think about trying something that didn't come out of a magazine article?
Click to expand...

No need to get nasty!

FWIW, I am a degreed engineer and have been for the past 30 years, I have more than a passing understanding of how these ignition boxes work. Unfortunately I can't access the Moparchat site from work so I will have to wait until this evening to make a technical assessment of what is being stated.

As for magazine articles I have seen some that are spot on, others that are 1/2 right and other still that are a pile of sh**. I don't accept anything I read as gospel and any opinion I express is based on information I have collected that has been tempered with my knowledge of physics, electronics and engineering, I don't just spue out something I heard or read.

Are there better ignition systems available than the mopar system? Absolutely without a doubt! Will the mopar ecu get the job done for the majority of folks? Absolutely without a doubt!

Will I try anything new? Absolutely, but only after weighing the potential gain against the cost. Like most folks I have a limited amount of disposable income so upgrading an ignition that is getting the job done just isn't a priority.
 
I didn't see that statement in the the MoparChat thread but I do appologize for accusing you of making the statement.

In any case the MoparChat beat all around the topic and a couple of people did mention it. It's the lack of dwell time at high rpm that I mentioned is what is going on, not pulling timing out.

If you look at the mopar performance catalog each of these ECUs are rated for a max rpm. If you always opperate below the rated rpm range then you are fine. The FBO box is rated to 8800 rpm. The site is not specific about the internals and it does say it's a drop in for the mopar unit so I am going to assume it operates on the same principle. That being the case if you never shift you street mopar above 5000 rpm you are not going to see any advantage to the FBO box.
 
Duster340,

I had the exact same problem with my conversion. I found the the distributor was reading 355 ohms when cold. After warming up the engine it would die and the reading from the distributor would not register. I changed out the distributor and it corrected the problem. Now I have to set the timing, idle, air-fuel mixture, etc to get i hope 34-36 degrees (mechanical + vacuum) advance. Hope this helps
 
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