orange box failure

-
65-440

65-440

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
1,475
Reaction score
302
Location
va. beach, va
Alright, went to start my dart up this afternoon and what do you know ....... NO START !! ahh ****, this car has never failed me before. It has sat for a little over a month, first thing I checked was fuel. Plenty of that stuff .... Put my spark tester on Cyl #1, and no spark. Checked ign voltage at the ballast, then to coil .. that's was good. Inside of cap appeared good, rotor turned when cranking. Found battery voltage on the - side of the coil coming from the ECU. Swapped the orange box out for my el cheapo spare, fired right up. So pissed, I bought that box maybe a year ago. Considering other ignition options, maybe the FBO setup. Not adding a MSD box, I do know that !
 
Go with the trailbeast hei conversion you will be very happy.
 
Orange boxes are junk and not made for high performance.

Just upgrade to a chrome mopar ignition box , my last one lasted 25 years
 
I used a Standard chrome box for years til I decided there were too many wires going everywhere and that's when I installed a coil in cap gm HEI and in the 3 years I have had this, not one problem, notta zip ...
 
Guess I am lucky too. Same Orange box for 14 years, 125,000 miles.I used to shift it at 7200 pretty regularly too.You know they have to be grounded, dont you? I clean my ground every once in a while, so I dont get stranded somewhere in the rain or snow or.........
I used to carry a spare ignition system in the glove box, but not any more. I guess Id put it back in there if I was going on a roadtrip.
 
IMO, upgrade to the MP chrome box or better yet a FBO box.
 
FBO box before ANYTHING electronic from MP....
I havr used the FBO box a few times for customers and are great.
 
Yep I've had two new orange boxes fail on two different cars. My buddy just had one fail last week. The older USA made are good but the newer China made ones are junk. I run 30 year old original black boxes with no problems.
 
You changed the ECU and then got spark, thus you conclude ??? When you have time try putting the orange box back in. Simply removing the old (possibly rusty) sheet metal screw may have given you back the required ground connection.

Any HEI type kit will simplify your wiring and improve reliability (no ballast, etc). You can leave the old wiring and stuff in there for that "period look" and wait for an under-bay cleanup to strip the old stuff out. I got HEI parts from 80's GM trucks for <$20, just snip and go.
 
BillGrissom said:
You changed the ECU and then got spark, thus you conclude ??? When you have time try putting the orange box back in. Simply removing the old (possibly rusty) sheet metal screw may have given you back the required ground connection.

Any HEI type kit will simplify your wiring and improve reliability (no ballast, etc). You can leave the old wiring and stuff in there for that "period look" and wait for an under-bay cleanup to strip the old stuff out. I got HEI parts from 80's GM trucks for <$20, just snip and go.
Click to expand...

Thus I concluded the box was bad ! Not to mention The battery voltage on the negative side of the coil. First thing I checked was ground, all good there. After it fired with my old box I instantly swapped boxes and no fire with the orange box. I had both boxes laying on my floor board w/ a jumper wire to ground( box is mounted under dash ) .... Another buddy of mine told me about ignition boxes by Rick Ehrenberg, said they are supposed to be pretty good and not as much as the FBO stuff ...
 
I would be interested in buying an orange box that no longer works to do an HEI conversion. PM me if you have one.
 
Orange boxes that were built in the USA were fine. I had a couple that lasted well over 20 years, but I had an almost new one fail on my Valiant and then discovered it was made in China. No surprise.

I now have a standard Mopar box that is marked as made in USA and was probably built years ago. It's said to be good to 6k RPMs, so it's all I need for a slant six.
 
TF360 said:
What's a FBO box?
Click to expand...

http://4secondsflat.com/Ignition.html

As for the original Orange box. I thought I blew 3 of them. It ended up being the crappy sheet metal screws. I ended up drilling the holes out, and bolting it but I also made a ground wire and used star washers so that I knew I had a good ground.

Some auto parts stores locally around me have equipment to test the ECU boxes. My Oriellys has said equipment. If you have one grab the box and bring it to them to see if it is actually bad.
 
My box was bolted to a metal bracket that was bolted to the backside of my dash frame. No screws. All surfaces clean. Not sure if I want to spend the coin on an FBO setup, having some trouble finding info on trailbeast box. Might give the Rick Ehrenberg ignition box a try. Been busy getting my 68 Coronet back on the road, wasn't expecting this problem !
 
The older MP boxes are good. The newer ones are where the problems are. I actually prefer the older orange box, because they retard the timing at high RPM. I like that feature. It helps prevent detonation in the upper RPM ranges when the timing is all in. The chrome and gold boxes don't do that.

That said, I like these GM style coil in cap distributors like Joey recommended. They had a flawless reputation in the GM cars through the 70s. Simple, one wire and a very hot spark. Plus they are cheap.

What I like most is, they are simply a GM distributor top on a Mopar shaft. Literally everything from the 70s HEI GM distributors will interchange. That means a huge volume of cheap parts readily available. People scoff at the quality of Chinese parts, but the solution there is simple. Since the body is billet aluminum, that's hard to screw up. Even if you rebuilt the whole unit from GM parts, you'd still be money ahead from MSD stuff or anything else.

All this of course is JMO from my experience. Your results may vary. RustyRatRod 2014 all rights reserved.
 
RustyRatRod said:
RustyRatRod 2014 all rights reserved.
Click to expand...

Nice one ! I checked out trailbeasts kit, looks like i'll be able to use my current distributor. Can the HEI stuff be mounted inside the car / under the dash somewhere ? Would be interested but wanna keep my engine bay looking Factory ...
 
Sure and in fact, that's a smart idea. Keeps it away from heat.
 
RustyRatRod said:
All this of course is JMO from my experience. Your results may vary. RustyRatRod 2014 all rights reserved.
Click to expand...

Hahahaha thanks for the laugh Rob!

65-440 said:
Nice one ! I checked out trailbeasts kit, looks like i'll be able to use my current distributor. Can the HEI stuff be mounted inside the car / under the dash somewhere ? Would be interested but wanna keep my engine bay looking Factory ...
Click to expand...

Yes you can do that or you can hide it inside a Mopar ECU, like in the link below. This is something I did myself. You would never know I had HEI in the car. With the exception of the missing ballast resistor.

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=252705
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top