swaping to MSD 6al

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cannucky

The Guy With No Birthday
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well this should be fun , I wanted the rev limiter so I am going to swap in a new digital msd box and hopefully get rid of the "always carry a spare for both" ballast resister , and Mopar box plus gain the rev limiter . already reading the 60 different ways to hook it up instruction book but I`m going to start with the small block Chrysler diagram . wish me luck lol
 
Good luck. I doubt you'll run into many problems. We're running MSD boxes on all of our cars here and never had too many problems. We did however have one that we had to reverse polarity on the wires running to the distributor. It took me a while to figure out that it was the cause of a misfire.
 
well this should be fun , I wanted the rev limiter so I am going to swap in a new digital msd box and hopefully get rid of the "always carry a spare for both" ballast resister , and Mopar box plus gain the rev limiter . already reading the 60 different ways to hook it up instruction book but I`m going to start with the small block Chrysler diagram . wish me luck lol
its about time LOL I think it will help with the performance of your stroker engine(stronger spark)You might wanna open up your plug gap abit also.JMO
 
thanks guys , I should be good on the dizzy since it`s an MSD ProBillet and still has the MSD connector on it , I bought an MSD connector and cut the Chrysler one off my harness when I put the motor in so I wouldn't ruin the dizzy , and yes Scott I suppose it is about time, I just didn't want to give up the stock stuff but hopefully this will also clean up a few things under there as well as preventing a repeat of last summer , hows the race car doing , the track cleared up yet ?
 
Dont go too far without the stock stuff in the trunk. To some guys, MSD stands for May Suddenly Die....I lost one 6A box only a mile from home. Backwards polarity will cause the falling edge of reluctor to trip coil, about 10 degrees out. White lead should be well insulated to prevent grounding and cutting ignition completely (or tie into a anti theft ground switch in cab) or wire into MSD distributor if it calls for an orange to white splice.
 
Hey Chris,I just pulled the 68 Cuda out of the trailer and loaded up the 66 Dart.Its ready for the season,just waiting for things to dry up.Now that I think about it I forgot to drain the antifreeze out of it and add just water(distilled).:banghead:
 
HA theres always something eh Scott lol , thanks Pishta I am hoping I will be in the 97% not the 3% , I know a lot of people running this box who have had them in multiple cars with no issues and I know 1 guy who is in the 3 % who has gone through several boxes mainly already in cars he bought and just can't catch a break with them . Fingers crossed ,as I said I should be good on the polarity since I'm using an MSD distributor with their connector still on it , the only questionable part about wiring it is the Tach , one set of instructions I have read said to buy their tach harness but the set that came with the box says to use the grey wire for the tach signal , I'm using an aftermarket tach from charger specialties that is digital on the inside but looks like the oe in dash rally tach so I'll have to check with the hotline I think .
 
I'll have to compare those to what I'm using , I know I am running an NGK V notch plug at like .036 right now , I tried to go to .045 last year but they didn't like it . thanks
 
I'll have to compare those to what I'm using , I know I am running an NGK V notch plug at like .036 right now , I tried to go to .045 last year but they didn't like it . thanks
I also run the MSD SS Blaster coil.Yours might like the bigger gap now that you have the box,maybe time for a MSD coil also..:burnout:
 
Yeah I bought one last year but had to leave it at Kimmer's place , I was going to wait till I get that way again to swap it but I think I'll just grab another one here and do the swap now while I'm doing the conversion .
 
Next Question = Where did everybody mount their box ? It looks like the leads won't reach from the passenger side inner fender and the washer bottle is in the way on the drivers side . Show some pics if you can guys -thanks
 
Remember that there is a start and run wire to trigger the box on. If you only hook up one, you'll b chasing your tail. When you disconnect the ballast, IIRC, the wires are brown and Blue. Pigtail those together to the small red wire from your Digital 6
 
In my race car it's on a panel inside the car with wires running through a grommet in the firewall. On my show car it's painted body color and stashed under the battery box! Out of sight and after 10 years no problems...
 
Thanks Crackedback , the guy who did my resto used a 2 blade ballast and connected 3 wires using blade connector spiltters to 1 side and 2 to the other using a single splitter on that side which has the blue and brown on it , the MSD instructions say to hook old coil positive to the red power trigger ?
 
okay I went home and took another look at it and got the meter out , on the side with three wires there is 1 a red -most likely the key on lead for the old electric choke , 2 a light green -no idea where it goes , and 3 a small guage dark blue , key on this side is about 12 volts , pull the other side off this side stays hot , do the opposite the other side goes cold so this is the feed side , the other side the one with 2 wires has a dark blue and a brown both are of a slightly larger gauge than the wires on the other side of the ballast . I'm going to probably have to unwrap the harness to delete some of these wires , on the lighter side after reading the instructions a dozen times I kept wondering why they tell you to cut and tape the unused white wire when it took me all of about 6 seconds to slide a tiny driver in the release hole and pull it out of the connector completely , add a little silicone dab into the open hole and voila no worrying about a taped wire staying taped .
 
update , the car had a carb problem right before I started the conversion and was flooding itself so bad it would start , even the foot on the floor wouldn't work , it turns out the flooding was coupled with weak spark from the coil so when I put the blaster 2 in it fired up and after an afternoon of tuning with Inertia { thanks again bud } we had most of it sorted and running reasonably well . I then installed the MSD , the install was a breeze took about 30 minutes including gapping the plugs since I had already planned what was I was going to do before hand , fired up first try had a real strong smooth feel to her but wouldn't idle , she flooded again and would only restart with my foot on the floor . The motor was warmed up real good from tuning the carb and after a couple of try's where it would start with my foot on the floor , I would rev her a little to burn off any excess fuel and then gradually ease off the throttle only to have her flood out I said enough. It took me another 20-30 minutes to put her back to Mopar and sure enough turn the key and she fires right up . I thinking I need to find a better plug for the MSD ,when re-gapping back to .035 for stock the plugs were completely black and fluffy from the MSD so either the temp range is wrong or the .050 gap isn't right for these plugs . I tried to buy the Autolite plug recommended by Scott but that part # doesn't come up in the computer , I'm going to hold off the MSD until I am sure all the carb issues are sorted and I get some more input on plug selection .
 
if you are running rich...the multi spark and longer spark duration of the msd is going to help your engine...but nothing is going to run right if the it getting drown in gas.....

spark plugs only reflect what is going on in your combustion chamber.......
 
yes thats why I am holding off until I get the carb sorted for sure , it was pouring raw un-atomized fuel down 1 of the 4 barrels , I cleaned the air bleeds yesterday after talking to holley tech support , and it appears to be functioning correctly , it was pouring rain here all day so I didn't get out for a good run , I did however replace the year old blackened plugs with a fresh set and will be taking her out for a good run today then checking the plugs to see if they are back to their usual light lavender on the porcelin and light beige on the conductor . I was surprised that the MSD didn't burn the excess fuel as well as the Mopar system did but I'm guessing that has to do with the huge gap they recommended as that was the only physical change I made to the motor when I did the swap .
 
darnit Tony that does look like a good spot , I ended up putting mine in front of the washer bottle on the other side ,up on the "flat", it's all unhooked until I get this carb sorted tho , took it out for cruise around town and the new plugs came out a little black around the base of the porcelin , it must be still a little rich .I'm ordering the bushings from CrackedBack so I get the initial timing back up to what the motor has liked in the past , I have been dialing back timing to keep the total down , this motor made it's best power with 32 total and the smallest advance bushing MSD supplies is 18 which has my initial at 14 which is way to low , using the kick back method for setting initial usually puts me at 19 initial so I am guessing the reduced timing is to blame for the rich looking plugs . At 19 initial I have always seen nice clean plugs , but suspect that the 40 total that caused with the old 21 bushing probably had something to do with pushing a head gasket at 6500rpm last summer .
 
I have MSD boxes on all my muscle cars, its the best ignition out there
 
Little pointer, if you ever plan on welding in your car, for any reason, COMPLETELY remove the box from the car. i killed my analog 6A, and my friend killed his digital 7 series in his challie. hard lesson to learn. I use NGK GR4's, (V-power) gapped at .040" and my teeeny bopper 318's responded well to them. both of mine are rolling re-curved factory distributors. the rev limiter function is nice. if you like fire, loud nioses, and scaring the holy crap out of people the rev-limiter spark-cut is useful for that. "BWAAHH!!! BWAAHWHAWHAHAWAHH KA-BOOOOM!!! of course when i did it, it was on "accident" heh. i use both my units as a standalone setup. A. i like a clean engine bay, and B. i have a borderline psychotic hatred for rats-nest wiring harnesses with an absolute passion. in the dart i run a high-vibration canister type coil, rated at 45,000 volts on the secondary windings, and a blaster SS in the power-less wagon, rated at 42,000 volts. spiral core wires are the most user friendly on these units. i run accels and havent had a failure related to product construction, just my own crappy "i was in a hurry" crimp job on a coil wire end...whoops....
 
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