Ignition box tests

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yellow rose

yellow rose

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FABO member Gumper has been kind enough to allow me to post 3 videos of his Mallory HyFire VII 677s ignition boxes I tested today. They aren’t very long, and it will be obvious I’m nowhere near a professional video maker. My plan was to have my wife run the camera but she was busy so I cowboy’d up and did it myself.





 
Well I’m happy the first box is fine although that leads me to wonder what my next step in finding the problem will be. My next though is maybe the ballast was going bad since the ignition feed went through it first. I’m assuming the coil is alright as well?

That second box is in much better shape because it didn’t last very long in the car. My heavy fingers put some wear and tear on the other one. I change launch RPM often.
 
Like every Mallory Box I purchased from SuperShops in the late 80's it failed after one high RPM run! My inner fender ended up like swiss cheese! Some of these failures could have been my crappy old wiring but!

Please do some more of these with vintage Chrysler boxes, FBO,MSD and Pertronix!

Like the Thread!
 
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Dude! That was awesome. Also makes me glad I have a good box.
 
gumper said:
Well I’m happy the first box is fine although that leads me to wonder what my next step in finding the problem will be. My next though is maybe the ballast was going bad since the ignition feed went through it first. I’m assuming the coil is alright as well?

That second box is in much better shape because it didn’t last very long in the car. My heavy fingers put some wear and tear on the other one. I change launch RPM often.
Click to expand...

Don’t use the ballast resister. I didn’t see you were using one. You don’t need it.
 
1969383S said:
Like every Mallory Box I purchased from SuperShops in the late 80's it failed after one high RPM run! My inner fender ended up like swiss cheese! Some of these failures could have been my crappy old wiring but!

Please do some more of these with vintage Chrysler boxes, FBO,MSD and Pertronix!

Like the Thread!
Click to expand...


I’ve got boxes from the 1980’s that were on race cars and then went on street cars and they still work. I’ve only seen two bad boxes here. I had 2 MSD boxes fail on my bench. Brand new and they failed.
 
1969383S said:
Like every Mallory Box I purchased from SuperShops in the late 80's it failed after one high RPM run! My inner fender ended up like swiss cheese! Some of these failures could have been my crappy old wiring but!

Please do some more of these with vintage Chrysler boxes, FBO,MSD and Pertronix!

Like the Thread!
Click to expand...


I will get a video up of the Gold Box. That thing is impressive. 1 degree of retard in 10,000 RPM. That’s about as good as it gets.
 
yellow rose said:
I’ve got boxes from the 1980’s that were on race cars and then went on street cars and they still work. I’ve only seen two bad boxes here. I had 2 MSD boxes fail on my bench. Brand new and they failed.
Click to expand...

Mallory and MSD were my failures! Maybe I just did not have the correct config in wiring and old it was! My Chrysler Gold was always up to the job. Pertronix III is my favorite thus far! As it is well hidden for my resto!
 
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yellow rose said:
Don’t use the ballast resister. I didn’t see you were using one. You don’t need it.
Click to expand...
I already rewired it direct to the ignition, and removed the ballast. Have been chasing them eliminating wires the past couple days. Yet to find an obvious problem.
 
Would like to see how a digital 6 plus box works. All the standard 6al boxes I’ve read up on having many failures
 
1969383S said:
Like every Mallory Box I purchased from SuperShops in the late 80's it failed after one high RPM run! My inner fender ended up like swiss cheese! Some of these failures could have been my crappy old wiring but!

Please do some more of these with vintage Chrysler boxes, FBO,MSD and Pertronix!

Like the Thread!
Click to expand...
Mallory was a Super Shops brand, and had a bad reputation at the time for unreliability, BUT. What i heard, was that the remans had far better quality control than the new parts. I heard of a SS warehouse sale in berdoo, so i went. I bought a 250gph mallory gerotor fuel pump reman, a 690 box, (hyfire v) and the matching coil, also both reman.
The pump works perfectly, gonna put it on my big block opel, and the box and coil went easy 11s a couple weeks ago, after 30+ years of faithful service.
Edit: got a gold box on the shelf somewhere too. I dont know if it is good or bad.
 
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33IMP said:
Mallory was a Super Shops brand, and had a bad reputation at the time for unreliability, BUT. What i heard, was that the remans had far better quality control than the new parts. I heard of a SS warehouse sale in berdoo, so i went. I bought a 250gph mallory gerotor fuel pump reman, a 690 box, (hyfire v) and the matching coil, also both reman.
The pump works perfectly, gonna put it on my big block opel, and the box and coil went easy 11s a couple weeks ago, after 30+ years of faithful service.
Edit: got a gold box on the shelf somewhere too. I dont know if it is good or bad.
Click to expand...


Dig out the gold box and send it to me. I’ll test it for you.
 
33IMP said:
Mallory was a Super Shps brand, and had a bad reputation at the time for unreliability, BUT. What i heard, was that the remans had far better quality control than the new parts. I heard of a SS warehouse sale in berdoo, so i went. I bought a 250gph mallory gerotor fuel pump reman, a 690 box, (hyfire v) and the matching coil, also both reman.
The pump works perfectly, gonna put it on my big block opel, and the box and coil went easy 11s a couple weeks ago, after 30+ years of faithful service.
Click to expand...

I went through 3 boxes in a week of high Fire V. I am not going to count out my poor tired 69 wiring at the time! I may have also overlooked things. My Chrysler Gold box in the day was the best and never failed me!
@1Badcolt has it now!
 
I probably got one of your warrantee returns after mallory fixed it, lol!
Mine is mounted upside down in the footwell. Maybe that helps?
(Found the gold box. Still has the ballast as part of the wiring loom attached. Maybe that was why it failed, if it did?)

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That is super cool. Now if we can figure out why my timing is jumping around at full advance I’d be a pig in ****. New Hughes 6442 chain is on the way...
 
yellow rose said:
I will get a video up of the Gold Box. That thing is impressive. 1 degree of retard in 10,000 RPM. That’s about as good as it gets.
Click to expand...


Yep It was awesome but did not fit my Resto Look! Also used the Big Ugly Yellow Acell super coil and ran Solid core Taylor 8mm wires.

I would be very interested in a test with Pertronix III and prescribed Flamethrower III coil I am using today, with bypassed ballast and Taylor resistor wires!
 
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I need to box up that Allison xr700 ignition box and Mallory distributor that came out of my boat and send em to you. Allison became the crane fireball which became f.a.s.t xr700.
 
Cool thread. Love learning about the stuff we didnt appreciate back in the day. When we didnt have everything made in China.
 
yellow rose said:
I’ve got boxes from the 1980’s that were on race cars and then went on street cars and they still work. I’ve only seen two bad boxes here. I had 2 MSD boxes fail on my bench. Brand new and they failed.
Click to expand...
To be fair the msd boxes were brand new and we know how bad parts are now, if mallory was still around (independently) they would probably be using Chinese circuitry as well for the price/profit margin. My brothers msd is still alive with all those miles, and it was in it when you "test drove" it all those years ago lol, he still talks about that one.
 
lead69 said:
To be fair the msd boxes were brand new and we know how bad parts are now, if mallory was still around (independently) they would probably be using Chinese circuitry as well for the price/profit margin. My brothers msd is still alive with all those miles, and it was in it when you "test drove" it all those years ago lol, he still talks about that one.
Click to expand...


Yep. The new electronic pieces are a giant crap shoot. That’s why it’s best to test this stuff before it’s put into a car. Much easier to fix before it’s installed.
 
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