msd ignition

[Greg72]

Josh,

There was an issue with the OffRoad box for a while that has been corrected and are trouble free since. I had an OffRoad box fail on me to be honest with you however this was one of the troubbled units. The OffRoad box is really only necessary if you will be completely submurging the thing under water or are gonna be beating the thing with extreme vibration. i.e. Baja 1000? I run the new 6AL-2 on mine and have no issues; then again there is absolutly no water here in the desert southwest but I do beat on the truck pretty hard.

It's nice to have someone "in-the-know" at MSD hanging out here and answering a few questions!

With respect to the Offroad box, is there a range of dates or serial numbers that are most likely to be affected by the initial quality issues? I have an Offroad box sitting in my parts pile but I'm reluctant to use it unless I know that it was built outside the range of problematic ones.

FWIW -> I've run an MSD-6AL box on my K5 for years without a lick of trouble. I've burned through the center conductor on the dizzy cap a few times (Pro-Billet version), which I attributed to the caps not venting moisture or ozone very well. More recent versions of the caps that I've bought now have a little breater on them....perhaps to clear the ozone/moisture that collects???

Other than that, the MSD stuff has been trouble-free for me. As you mentioned, not a BIG change in performance but it does seem to smooth out the idle quality quite a bit and overall it seems to run a bit smoother.

 

[Philly87]

Man you bust me out about not using paragraphs and now you ask for help? Not really man. It's pretty hard for me to answer questions here but if you can give me a call I'll definately see what I can do. I'm not a miracle worker so I'm not making any promises but I'll do my best to help out my fellow CK5ers!! 915-856-2739 is my direct line.

Phil

 

[Philly87]

-Greg72

On the back side of the unit there is a date code stamped with a letter and number. D7 for example. Get me the date code off the box and I'll check into it for you.

My recommendation for your issue burning up the center electrode in the cap is to make sure the spring tang on the rotor is bent up enough to make excellent contact with the carbon ball in the center of the cap. If this is not making contact and the spark is forced to arc and this will increase voltage at that point and cause it to burn up sooner than normal.

As with anything that makes great power it will tend to be a little harder on parts than stock equiptment. If it wasn't I would run a Top Fuel Drag motor in my Blazer but tearing it down when I get to work in order to drive it home and tear it down again just seems like a lot of work...

Phil

 

[sweetk30]

Man you bust me out about not using paragraphs and now you ask for help? Not really man. It's pretty hard for me to answer questions here but if you can give me a call I'll definately see what I can do. I'm not a miracle worker so I'm not making any promises but I'll do my best to help out my fellow CK5ers!! 915-856-2739 is my direct line.

Phil

yep guilty as charged on the call out.

thanks for the info you gave me on the phone call. that helped. keep up the good work.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Greg, i thought we attributed your burnt cap electrode to a plug wire or two having too much resistance.

 

[Greg72]

Greg, i thought we attributed your burnt cap electrode to a plug wire or two having too much resistance.

Scott,

The first cap failure I attributed to a high-resistance MSD wire (my fault, bad crimp)... I bought a complete new set of MSD "build em yourself" wires, cut and re-crimped all of them, and double-checked that they all had the proper resistance per foot.

I still ended up with a cap that was totally corroded on the center button and all the contacts, even with a very low number of operating hours. That second failure is what let me to believe that maybe the caps weren't venting properly....when I got a replacement MSD cap with a small breather that didn't used to be part of their design, I was fairly convinced that I understood the failure mode.


Phillip,

Here are the numbers I was able to locate on the Offroad Box:

Serial Number (top cover): 07634
Lot No (sticker on side): 120562 or (12056C?) sticker is slightly worn...
Aluminum Plate Stamp (underside): N 8


If it's possible without getting yourself in trouble, please share the method used to determine whether a box is in the "suspect range" of faulty boxes or not. I've read on the Interweb for YEARS about how bad the MSD Offroad boxes were....but never knew how much of that was real, and how much was simply the re-telling of the same story over and over for perhaps a small quantity of bad units. MSD as a company has certainly been crucified over this particular quality issue on numerous 4X4 message forums, so it would be great to have a discussion thread that actually shows how to check for a bad unit.

At this point, I'm sure that there is no longer a warranty exposure to MSD...so it's not like sharing the details will cause a flood of "in warranty" claims for bad Offroad boxes.

 

[Philly87]

Greg72,

According to the date code on your box it was built in February of 2002. There has been changes made in the type of potting compound used since then as well as changes made to the actual cicuit board as technology advances. Newer style circuit boards have warranted a couple of different potting compound changes so to get a date specifically would be difficult. If you are interested give ma a call at work or shoot me an e-mail with you number and I'll see if I can do anything to help you out with a new box.
(915) 856-2739 or [email protected]

Phil

 

[sweetk30]

back to the top. havent heard anything back from this guy. will try and call him soon.

anyone else get anywere?

edit: called him and he is getting me and gregs taken care of. he should be contacting you soon greg keep a eye out.

thanks man.

updated : all fixed and thanks for the help man.

 

[Blue85]

Just a comment that I think the coil and box/module should be swapped together. The dwell has to be matched. Unless you are actually measuring the primary current with a 'scope to verify proper charging, keep the parts matched.


And on the center button in the dizzy, I have melted a distributor cap with one. Switching to a lower resistance button fixed the problem. The stock buttons were fine until I increased the coil current to several amps. I know MSD sells a low resistance button for HEI.