orange box sucks what is better

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cudajim said:
You're all saying the orange box is junk but you're not saying why. Do they just stop working or are they out of spec or what?
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I've had 1 Orange box quit suddenly, fortunately the car was in the driveway, but that was 5 years ago. Never had a problem with a stock junkyard or aftermarket replacement box.
After saying that, I really like the MSD 6AL, Ive got 3 of them. On 2 occasions I thought the box was bad, but after testing it, found a bad distributor pick up.
 
What box you guys talking about , been over 35 years since I had a dart , now have one again with my son . Want to change to electronic so wondering what this box is , I remember the white ballast resistor , not sure on the orange box ? Is that a black or chrome stock bos with a 3 prong plug on it with a round transistor on the left of the plug ?
Thanks !
 
jerry6 said:
What box you guys talking about , been over 35 years since I had a dart , now have one again with my son . Want to change to electronic so wondering what this box is , I remember the white ballast resistor , not sure on the orange box ? Is that a black or chrome stock bos with a 3 prong plug on it with a round transistor on the left of the plug ?
Thanks !
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It's the ignition control unit. The stock ones are usually black that I've seen. There are three performance versions appropriately called and colored Orange, Chrome and Gold. The Mopar Ignition Upgrade kit comes with electronic (magnetic pickup) distributor, an Orange box and an appropriate ballast resistor. Orange is good performance box for street, Chrome street/strip, and Gold strip. The higher the performance the hotter they run so most guys don't recommend Gold for street use.
 
Badart said:
Good point. I am currently running a chrome box with no issues, but I have a couple of spare boxes and will throw one in the car.
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Same here, had the chrome box for years, never an issue. Used to race with a gold box, never a problem. I do have an orange box on the shelf, but have never plugged it in.
 
Thanks guys , where do I get this mopar upgrade ignition conversion kit . As i remember never had trouble with the stock elec ignition I put in . Ran well for years , i had the chrome box I think . One thing for sure , have to get rid of the points , just not good enough , even though it starts right up , for now
 
Is the pro form elec ignition kit as good as the if available mopar kit ? Hemi-ed turned me on to a sale of one , but just want to make sure it is as good or better than Mopar part . Sorry I'm such a pain , but it is for my son , want it as reliable as possible for a 40 year old car .
 
slantsixdan said:
All the boxes you can presently get from Mopar are Chinese junk, no matter what colour they are. Get a New Old Stock American-made box from Old Car Parts Northwest or see HEI upgrade.
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Really!! I have an orange box that is a couple of years old and it says Made in Mexico.

Standard Motor Products has always been considered top shelf when it comes to ignition parts and they own the Echlin brand that NAPA sells. I would venture a guess that that orange box comes from SMP's Mexico factory.

Standard makes their own parts and has factory and Engineering Centers in the US, Canada, Mexico, Poland and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong facility is TS16949 registered which is very stringent quality management system standard that the OEMs require their suppliers to be certified to. Technically Hong Kong is now China but the quality coming from that facility will be every bit as good as anything coming from a US factory, you don't go through the rigor to get a TS16949 certification if you are not committed to building quality products. Your HEI modules likely come from the same place.
 
Jerry, I have run alot of different OE style systems/manufactures over the years. No one seems better than another and the best = fewest brakedowns/returning customers has been exactly what DGC333 said. Running a side biz for a few years, Standard products have been the replacement product.

Sir Dan makes a good mention of items as well. Previous page

I've had trouble with MoPars Orange box in the past, never the chrome or Gold box's. But there also seldomly used.
The Standard units have allways been excellent, but there a stock replacement box.

A note on DGC333's post on Hong Kong. They just went back to China, a few years ago. Britsh owned/run/ruled for many many years, it came up from a small city to mega mega city. It IS China's crown jewel and they'll never mess with it because it is a money power house, tech power house and industrial giant with world class standards.

They may have produced cheap toys when many of us 40 + something yearolds were kids, but that's 30+ years ago. They generaly don't fool around and do excellent work. Not that crap doesn't come out of any world class place..........
 
I love my HEI setup. Running a 4-pin GM HEI module, Ford coil and the stock Mopar electronic distributor. Car runs great. Best thing I've done to it.
 
Once I re-wired my car.....head light to tail light, I NEVER had an issue with the mopar ignition setup.

I have also NEVER had an issue with the current MSD setup.


resistance due to plugs/wires/plug gaps/rotor gap [yes, there is resistance there]
is all a ok to an extent and based on system requirement-msd,jacobs,crane..all require resistor plugs for instance in order to trigger properly, but resistance in the input feed itself will cause malfunctioning.
 
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