MSD yay or nay

There's a great Engine Masters episode I watched recently about ignition systems. They basically proved that your engine determines what "level" of ignition components you need. They took a stroker big block Ford and initially ran it on crappy old plug wires, plugs, points distributor, junkyard coil etc. and it ran fine until about 4,000 RPM. It wasn't until the engine was revving past that speed where a better control box and distributor kept it from misfiring and losing power. It made the exact same HP and torque from the start of the pull to about 4,000 RPM whether running basic old stock stuff or fancy MSD box, coil and distributor. Multi-spark can help MPG and throttle response at part-throttle and low RPM on the street but does basically nothing for WOT especially where specifically MSD-brand boxes don't multi-spark over 4000 RPM or so.

OEMs don't bother with multi-spark on modern engines which should say something. Doesn't mean it doesn't work but the gains aren't worth the added complexity and expense on a street vehicle meant to go 80,000+ miles with no maintenance on the ignition system. They went to coil-on-plug because the fancier "precious metal" spark plugs need more energy to create spark and it's easier to electronically control spark timing on the fly. The iridium, platinum etc. plugs are only used because they last a lot longer than copper-core plugs. MSD just did a really good job of marketing their technology to where every high-performance/racing aftermarket ignition system "needs" to have multi-spark capability for racers and hot-rodders to pay attention to it.

In a nutshell, an MSD-type control box (or any ignition "upgrade" for that matter) won't do jack for WOT performance unless the stock system isn't up to the task of supporting the RPMs and cylinder pressures. To be fair, points-type ignition systems are terrible for high-compression/boosted and high-RPM engines. Factory electronic systems are pretty dang good for the vast majority of performance engines, the only problem is it's tough to find reliable and capable aftermarket replacements for "vintage" electronic ignition parts these days. We've all seen how current replacement Mopar ECUs can be crap right out of the box.