Let's see why my spark disappeared

-
For what it’s worth, I’ll add my experience with MSD stuff. I’ve had boxes in at least 10 street cars, 2 boxes in our race truck (redundancy), two in boats, and countless distributors. Only ever had one failure and it was rust inside a distributor that I left sitting in my garage. So my own fault.
 
It’s all okay .
Yes,,,MSD s do fail,,,,but it’s not rampant .
Mostly from age and overheating or moisture contamination .
Just like anything,,,we all get old and die eventually .

Mopar ignition boxes.
Points systems.
Cam and lifter failures .
Brands of oil,,,and especially filters .
Mopar transmissions .

It’s all just in the eye of the beholder .

Tommy
 
If you use them with good results, that's good for you.

Excellent. Thanks for the honesty. Now
Theyve always been literally great for me, and definately solved my high speed miss situation in one of the drag cars.
BUT, that was a while ago and ive not bought a box in years now. So, i should be a fanboi, but i keep my mouth shut and stay on the fence lol.
 
I've got a Jacob's Ignition box that I need to put in my Dart. Never missed a beat in the vehicles I've run it in. :)
 
The first prototype regulator failed and drove charging to 19 volts. The one I had on the car at the time the MSD box died was working fine. I was data logging at the time, so I can even check exactly how high the voltage went on that test drive once I get home.
 
Theyve always been literally great for me, and definately solved my high speed miss situation in one of the drag cars.
BUT, that was a while ago and ive not bought a box in years now. So, i should be a fanboi, but i keep my mouth shut and stay on the fence lol.
That’s interesting, you use a product, have “literally great” results from said product, solved problems with said product, yet you do not endorse that product when someone “claims” they are junk. I agree you should be a fanboy but I don’t agree with “keeping your mouth shut and staying on the fence”.
 
Further analysis. This 6A is very similar to the mid 1980s model dissected http://www.giordanobenicchi.it/ECU/msd6a_02.pdf]in this writeup[/url]. The damaged area is in between the transistors marked Q15 and Q16.

IMG_20250730_184558953.jpg

One of the resistors is completely obliterated, and one is burned until you can see the spiral inside. I think the rest are just splattered with the char from the other two. This is the circuit that drives the transformer, and it appears the resistors that trigger the transistors were overloaded.

Could I fix it? Maybe. I'd need to determine the resistance of the damaged resistors, the transistors would need to be in good shape, and the transformer would have to be undamaged.

Battery voltage on that last run never went over the mid 13's.
 
Further analysis. This 6A is very similar to the mid 1980s model dissected http://www.giordanobenicchi.it/ECU/msd6a_02.pdf]in this writeup[/url]. The damaged area is in between the transistors marked Q15 and Q16.

View attachment 1716436339
One of the resistors is completely obliterated, and one is burned until you can see the spiral inside. I think the rest are just splattered with the char from the other two. This is the circuit that drives the transformer, and it appears the resistors that trigger the transistors were overloaded.

Could I fix it? Maybe. I'd need to determine the resistance of the damaged resistors, the transistors would need to be in good shape, and the transformer would have to be undamaged.

Battery voltage on that last run never went over the mid 13's.
What’s your time worth? I feel as though you like projects like this but I’d probably bite the bullet and get another box.
 
Through the years, here and on FBBO, there have been an awful lot of failure threads and posts. Also, it seems that every time I am at the drag strip, there is an announcement or two asking for a 6AL box or what ever. There may be a million of them out there but there seems to be a lot of failures. No, I've never owned one. If you use them with good results, that's good for you.
One more thing, no one ever walks up to the tower at a drag strip and asks the announcer to ask how many people out there have perfectly working MSD ignition boxes. In the same vein, no one ever posts a topic on a web forum just to let everyone know how good their MSD ignition box (or comp flat tappet cam) works. The failures are easy to count, the successes are not.
 
What’s your time worth? I feel as though you like projects like this but I’d probably bite the bullet and get another box.
I'm mostly troubleshooting it for my own amusement and curiousity. My get it running plans are to bypass the box and run without it, and my long term plans are to put in an ignition system that makes the 6A look like a set of 6 volt breaker points.
 

For what it’s worth, I’ll add my experience with MSD stuff. I’ve had boxes in at least 10 street cars, 2 boxes in our race truck (redundancy), two in boats, and countless distributors. Only ever had one failure and it was rust inside a distributor that I left sitting in my garage. So my own fault.
"Redundancy" Why would you need an extra if they don't fail? Most serious race cars have 2 (just in case of a failure) and you often find an extra box or two in every race car trailer. It seems the old ones could last a long time. I hear not so much with the newer built models.
 
There is no reason to continue this discussion. If you like MSD's go for it. You can use as many as you wish. I personally, will never own one. I feel they are overkill and not necessary for the cars I own.
 
That’s interesting, you use a product, have “literally great” results from said product, solved problems with said product, yet you do not endorse that product when someone “claims” they are junk. I agree you should be a fanboy but I don’t agree with “keeping your mouth shut and staying on the fence”.
But you left out the most important part of the quote....i dont usually jump on one side or the other because i havent bought a new msd box in years. It seems everyone griping is peeved with company since they left El Paso. I have no experience from that point forward....but you are right, my old stuff soldiers on, with better spark than anything Mopar ever made, original or aftermarket, as far as i have known.
 
"Redundancy" Why would you need an extra if they don't fail? Most serious race cars have 2 (just in case of a failure) and you often find an extra box or two in every race car trailer. It seems the old ones could last a long time. I hear not so much with the newer built models.
Because to get an entire race team to Mexico and race the baja 1000 or 500 or any other race we enter costs 10s of thousands of dollars and we have redundancy on every system in the truck so something stupid doesn’t take us out of a race. Think airplane style redundancy. Fuel pumps, alternators, ps pumps, driveshafts, suspension links, etc, you name it and we carry two of it. We’ve never used the spare MSD box in the 15 years I’ve raced with the team.
 
But you left out the most important part of the quote....i dont usually jump on one side or the other because i havent bought a new msd box in years. It seems everyone griping is peeved with company since they left El Paso. I have no experience from that point forward....but you are right, my old stuff soldiers on, with better spark than anything Mopar ever made, original or aftermarket, as far as i have known.
I was giving you ****. It’s fun. And I can tell you have an awesome attitude about it. Thanks for that.
 
In my opinion, one thing that MSD offered as an 'extra' that may have saved MSD 'box' failures should have been included & added inside the box, even if it required making the box slightly larger. That is the #8830 noise filter. Starter voltage spikes pack a wallop, especially aftermarket ones because of their high power.
 
What on earth would that be???
Crank fired coil per plug with IGN-1A coils. They're similar spark energy on paper, but I've seen them lighting off over 400 hp per cylinder. And timing is way more accurate than a distributor pickup.
 
Crank fired coil per plug with IGN-1A coils. They're similar spark energy on paper, but I've seen them lighting off over 400 hp per cylinder. And timing is way more accurate than a distributor pickup.
This is almost comical.....so, you are going to run $800 worth of ignition coils fired off a crank trigger?? How much horsepower per cylinder are you running? And whats your total cost to replace your $300 current ignition?? Really curious to know if you are going to run the MSD crank trigger??
 
I already have the crank trigger in place; it's a 36-1, not the MSD flying magnet. Right now it's not hooked up, but you can see a write up here: Adding a camshaft position sensor and a crankshaft position sensor to an older engine

While this isn't anywhere near the 400 hp per cylinder level, I may very well turn the boost up to 15 or 20 psi in the future and would not want the ignition to be the limiting factor. I may go for a cheaper coil on plug system at first and see how far I can push it.
 
Further analysis. This 6A is very similar to the mid 1980s model dissected http://www.giordanobenicchi.it/ECU/msd6a_02.pdf]in this writeup[/url]. The damaged area is in between the transistors marked Q15 and Q16.

View attachment 1716436339
One of the resistors is completely obliterated, and one is burned until you can see the spiral inside. I think the rest are just splattered with the char from the other two. This is the circuit that drives the transformer, and it appears the resistors that trigger the transistors were overloaded.

Could I fix it? Maybe. I'd need to determine the resistance of the damaged resistors, the transistors would need to be in good shape, and the transformer would have to be undamaged.

Battery voltage on that last run never went over the mid 13's.
LOL I had to figure that link out. THAT is QUITE the writeup!!


I don't have much hands on with MSD. But I do have one of the old 1970's dedicated Mopar replacement boxes---uses the same connector as a Mopar ECU---and I fired it up 2-3 years ago, after all this time, it still works. I used to run it on my old SB Mopar swapped 62 FJ-40 Landcruiser. The hood / engine bay in that thing leaked, so I did have it and the coil mounted on the firewall INSIDE the vehicle.
 
Last edited:
I already have the crank trigger in place; it's a 36-1, not the MSD flying magnet. Right now it's not hooked up, but you can see a write up here: Adding a camshaft position sensor and a crankshaft position sensor to an older engine

While this isn't anywhere near the 400 hp per cylinder level, I may very well turn the boost up to 15 or 20 psi in the future and would not want the ignition to be the limiting factor. I may go for a cheaper coil on plug system at first and see how far I can push it.
I’ve used the stock LS truck coils to make more than 1200hp. I’ve also used the stock Honda V6 coils to make more than 600hp. While nowhere near 400hp/cyl it’s probably similar to what you’re trying to do.
 
For what it’s worth, I’ll add my experience with MSD stuff. I’ve had boxes in at least 10 street cars, 2 boxes in our race truck (redundancy), two in boats, and countless distributors. Only ever had one failure and it was rust inside a distributor that I left sitting in my garage. So my own fault.
Might not be your fault. MSD had a run of distributors that did that. Rusted all to heck and back under the cap. I've seen it a lot in person and here on the forum. Somehow, a bunch of distributor parts missed the rust proofing treatment.
 
Further analysis. This 6A is very similar to the mid 1980s model dissected http://www.giordanobenicchi.it/ECU/msd6a_02.pdf]in this writeup[/url]. The damaged area is in between the transistors marked Q15 and Q16.

View attachment 1716436339
One of the resistors is completely obliterated, and one is burned until you can see the spiral inside. I think the rest are just splattered with the char from the other two. This is the circuit that drives the transformer, and it appears the resistors that trigger the transistors were overloaded.

Could I fix it? Maybe. I'd need to determine the resistance of the damaged resistors, the transistors would need to be in good shape, and the transformer would have to be undamaged.

Battery voltage on that last run never went over the mid 13's.
I bet MSD will fix it. And charge accordingly.
 
-
Back
Top Bottom