Electronic Ignition Help

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beat2Hell

beat2Hell

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I just switched my Valiant over to electronic ignition, with a four pin module and distributor from a Duster. There's one thing I'm not clear on though. Does the coil positive go to the Start, and the module to Run? Or vice versa? If I have the coil on Start and the module on Run it idles well but misses under throttle. If I have it with the coil on Run and module on Start it idles high with a pretty good miss but pulls through all RPMs smoothly so I'm currently running it that way. Also, when on the freeway the tach needle freaks out at 3000 as I move up towards 75 Mph. Whats that about? Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everybody.
 
coil + gets both start and run power. difference is that when in start position the coil + gets full 12v power because the ballast is bypassed.



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'Xacly EXCEPT the bottom diagram, showing "the yellow wire going to start relay" is WRONG

Should be from original brown bypass circuit coming out of bulkhead. If you originally had a 2 wire resistor for points, this will already be there.

In other words, "coming from points," you should have been able to hook the new resistor up in place of the old one, and LEAVE the wiring that was in place as is, then add the following:

1 two wires from the module to the dist. pickup

2 ground the module!!!

3 proper wire from the module to coil neg, hook the tack to coil neg if used

4 Now all you have left is module power. It goes to the KEY side of the ballast, not the coil side

In the top diagram, the ONLY thing was changed was the coil neg and to the left of that, and the blue from the module was ADDED

The coil + wiring, the resistor, and "to the right" of the diagram is "same as" original
 
Yep the yellow from start relay is wrong. in fact if you study it you'll find it very wrong. When the switch is in run the blue wire is hot so there would be reduced voltage going bad to the starter relay at all times. Who know what problems that could cause.
There should be a brown ( hot in start ) wire comming from the ignition switch on any year model.
 
Ok, so coil positive to Start position, module to Run position. That does make more sense. But it misses like hell when wired this way, could that be as simple as a timing issue?
 
At this point I cannot imagine what you might be doing wrong

Where did you get the harness? Is the distributor pickup connector intact, or did you "cut and splice" it together, IE you might have the pickup coil wrong polarity?

What are these yellow wires????? What year is your car?
 
No, the harness was complete. I simply installed it, though I did once make my own harness for a Sweptline and I did get the polarity backwards. It ran, but terribly. So I dont think thats it. I have a yellow wire that goes from the Run position on the ballast, through the bulkhead, to the run position on the ignition switch. There is another yellow wire crimped to the same spade terminal as that yellow wire which has to be the igntion feed, but I havent tracked down where it terminates. I should probably figure that out, but its basically two yellow wires crimped into a spade connector that plugs into the Run position on the ballast. One goes to the ignition switch. I do not know where the other goes yet, but I dont know if there should be two wires there. It was that way when I was running points. I hope that was a good explanation. Its a '65 Valiant that was mostly original, though some of the original wiring has been replaced at some point. Everything functions as it should, and looks very well done with insulated connectors and all. All lights, signals, wipers, gauges and even the AM radio still work perfectly.
 
This may then be a voltage problem.

ONE POINT should all join together----

the "input" to the ballast (opposite from coil side)

the IGN power coming out of the bulkhead

The "I" terminal of the voltage regulator

and the power terminal of the ECU

(In the top drawing, this POINT is the bottom terminal of the ballast resistor. This should also feed off to your regulator "I" terminal)

So do four checks

1 Key on, engine off, measure voltage between battery + and the "POINT" above, IE the bulkhead side of the ballast. You want to see very low voltage, the lower the better. More than .2--.3V (that's 3 TENTHS of a volt) means you have a voltage drop problem in the harness

2 Hook voltmeter to battery + and coil +. Unhook and ground coil high tension wire. Crank engine USING THE KEY, NOT by jumpering the start relay. Again, you want a low reading, the lower the better. More than .3-.5V means voltage drop, and even .5 (1/2) volt is really too much

4 Engine running at "low to med. cruise" RPM measure the battery voltage, and measure on "bulkhead" side of ballast. You should have 13.8--14.2v optimum, no less than 13.5, no more than 14.5. Do this with engine and regulator warm.

Also examine all connectors. Remove and "work" the connectors in/ out to scrub them clean, "feel" for connector tightness, and visually inspect for rust/ corrosion. Do this for ballast, ECU, and distributor. Pay particular attention to the distributor pickup

I'd recommend you pick up (no pun intended!!) a .008" (that's inches, not mm) brass feeler gauge. O'Reallys had these last time I asked. Check the reluctor/ pickup gap in the dist, and examine the reluctor/ pickup for debri, damage, and "feel" the shaft for side play. Make sure the reluctor has not been striking the pickup coil.

The same drawing "cropped." This drawing is excellent, as it shows clearly the polarity of the distributor connector, and the "start" and "run" connections
 

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Do you have any resistance device such as an electric choke spliced into the run side if ignition circuit? If so this will cause low voltage at +coil terminal, and poor idle quality. One way to check if you have an electric choke, is to unplug the + wire feeding the choke while engine is idling; if idle quality improves, you have found some of your problem. If this is the case, we have an easy solution to that situation.

An improper ballast resistor can also over reduce voltage to +coil terminal which will kill idle quality. Voltage on high side of ballast has to be a minimum of 13.5V, and coil side of ballast around 5-6 volts with stock coil. Less than five volts at coil, and the car won’t idle very well. As you have discovered, start circuit delivers full battery voltage to coil just long enough to get the engine started, than when key moves back to run, the coil receives 5-6 volts.

As 67Dart273 said, you need to test for voltage drop in the ignition circuit. 0.10 to 0.20 volts is tolerable, any more voltage reduction due to poor connections, bad wire, worn switches, or whatever will cause drivability and charging problems. Another place to look for voltage drop is in battery terminal connections, ground strap connections, and grounding of voltage regulator’s base, spark control’s base and alternator. A voltage drop in ground side of ignition circuit also adds up to cause problems as well. You may have make up a ground loop by running a #14 wire from negative battery terminal to base of voltage regulator, spark control base, and alternator to bring any zero out any ground side voltage drop.
 
OK, so everything is wired up as per diagram and it turns out the other yellow wire on RUN does go to the IGN terminal on the voltage regulator. So thats all correct. I did replace the ballast, and the old one looked pretty fried. I checked the timing and it was waaay too advanced so I bumped it down to 5 degrees btdc. Still idles pretty badly. The module is grounded with 10 gauge wire to the firewall which is grounded with 10 gauge wire to the block, which was a factory ground. I have nothing running off the ignition feed other than the module and the wire to the regulator. The only other thing I can think of is gapping the magnet/reluctor, which I'll do as soon as I can find a .008 piece of brass. I work at a True Value hardware store, but we only have .010 and .005 unfortunately. My other thought is that I may have lost compression somewhere along the way. The float stuck on the freeway one morning and pretty much dumped gas down the intake for 15 miles or so. It never really ran the same after that and I was still running points at the time. I wonder if it washed out the cylinder bores? Even before that, there was pretty severe blow-by at all times. Its a new module, really clean distributor, new coil, new ballast, wired correctly. Rebuilt but original and unmolested Carter one barrel meticulously adjusted to specs. Timing at 5 degrees. So, I am sort of stratching my head here.
 
Also, am I still supposed to be running that little resistor on the positive side of the coil? I was once told it was only needed with points, to avoid burning them. I'm pretty sure most electronic ignition equipped Mopars I've owned had that resistor but just a thought.
 
Geez, well, if you look at the diagram (the monochrome one is really the best) you'll notice there is a RESISTOR in the circuit. This ESSENTIALLY is unchanged from points to the Mopar ECU

In fact, Let's suppose your electronic system goes "dead" on the side of the road, and you have a points distributor in the trunk. A POINTS distributor

THE ONLY CHANGE you need to make, to plug your old points distributor in and make the engine run, is slam it in (in proper time) and hook the ONE wire on the points distributor to the NEG side of the coil. The rest of the wiring will be correct.

Did you make the voltage checks above? What were the results?
 
beat2Hell said:
Also, am I still supposed to be running that little resistor on the positive side of the coil? I was once told it was only needed with points, to avoid burning them. I'm pretty sure most electronic ignition equipped Mopars I've owned had that resistor but just a thought.
Click to expand...

The little thing on the coil that you refer to isn't a resistor. It's not absolutely required either. Toss it.
 
Also, am I still supposed to be running that little resistor on the positive side of the coil?
Click to expand...


Is this an aluminum cylinder with one wire? If so it is a radio noise suppression capacitor. It’s not needed.

Back to topic of grounding chasses or base of voltage regulator, and spark control box. The point of running this ground loop directly back to negative battery terminal is to eliminate any voltage drop created by poor connections. Each time a connection is made some small amount of resistance is added into the circuit. Car bodies are poor conductors, and trusting a fire wall to block to battery path just adds in resistance to a circuit that has to be as free from voltage drop as possible.

The ignition and chagrining circuits are controlling system voltage level, and charge rate for the whole electrical system. If voltages in that circuit are skewed, poor performance of all electrical systems will be the result; over charging, low voltage to coil, poor idle, etc.
 
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