Jump to content
HybridZ

MSD even worth hooking up?


Guest bastaad525

Recommended Posts

Guest bastaad525

I've already got the MSD 6A in my car, Turbo motor is going in this week, but I notice a lot of guys on here dont use any more than stock ignitions on their turbo setups. I'm kinda thinking.... if I don't need the thing I might sell it to put towards an I/C :) Anyways the motor is gonna be bone stock running 10psi of boost, would an MSD provide any benefit here (I'm not expecting it to make any more power)? I think part of the reason I'm kinda leaning towards getting rid of it.... it was such a PITA trying to get it wired right with the N/A engine..... guess I dont want to bother with it if stock works just fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If it will accept a pulse it might work, but I am not sure that anyone has ever gotten an MSD to work on the turbo cars.

 

There was a thread a month or two back talking about this. It sounded like you had to take the pulse off the ignition transistor that drives the coil, rather than the signal out from the ECU. It does a logic inversion - the ECU drives the transistor low to stop the coil current and produce a spark, rather than the input to the MSD that needs a high signal to fire the spark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

I did post a question a while back about how to hook it up but everyone that did reply was going from their experience in how to wire the MSD to an N/A car, but I would think it wouldn't wire the same to the turbo, and I have heard this from others. I was going to just try to wire it the same way I had it wired to the N/A motor anyways, but I dont think it's going to work. Yo2001 have you wired one to your turbo motor?? Did you need the Tach Adapter? Or just hook the red and white wires to the wires that originally connect to the coil? In my N/A car I had to experiment a lot to figure out how to get it running, and fried a few parts along the way. It ended up I needed to get the signal for the MSD from the ignition module on the side of the dizzy.... well actually from the wires that USED to go to this module, I had to take the module out completely and just run those to wires from inside the dizzy to the purple and green wires on the MSD. Again, I really dont think this will work for the turbo. When I had the MSD in my N/A '80 ZX, it was wired completely differenly, even though it was the same motor and ignition system! Yo if you've hooked one of these up to your turbo I would appreciate as detailed a description as possible as to exactly what you did with every wire off the MSD and any from the car that you used, and what went where.... you could save me from experimenting and frying anything like I did last time :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yap, I got MSD with Z31 MAF set up. Ignition is same as zxt after the module so shouldn't be a problem. I do have a two wire tach adater but no diode needed. I even using the factory tach with factory wiring. IT's real simple. I'll draw a diagram and post it later. Or hit me on th AIM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

yeah if you could make a wiring diagram and post it that would be awesome Yo2001. I also have the two wire tach adapter. Now at least I know for sure I can use it and it wont be too hard to get worked out :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

about using the factory tach with factory wiring, I know for a fact you can't do this with the 240's tach, it's run differently than just about everything else... even with the setup I have now I was not able to get the stock tach working, anyways I already have an autometer tach so I'm not worried about that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

Awesome thank youuuuuuuuuuuu Yo2001!!! That is exactly what I needed :) Good think I held on to my tach adapter all this time. The question is, if I'm not even going to try to use the stock tach, just running an autometer tach off the one wire tach signal that comes from the back of the MSD, do I still need the tach adapter at all? How would this diagram change if I'm just using an aftermarket tach?

 

 

Also it looks like you looped the stock ZXT + and - wires back to the coil (which are also still connected to the red and white from the MSD), so that actually you would end up with FOUR wires connected to the coil, is this correct?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you need the tach adapter I think. Something to do with Nissan's low voltage signal. I can try to crank my car without it later.

 

The two zxt original coil wire connects to MSD red and white with a tach adapter in line. Then, MSD coils wires connects to the coil. Got it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yo or 525 - could you send me the diagram how the 6A gets wired? I'd appreciate it. I'm being brain lazy, i know :) Thanks.

 

Oh yeah, one more quick question...There's no problem running the MSD without the BTM module on a T motor?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

here's the link directly to his drawing, jersey, when you cut and paste it it will give you a 'not authorised' message, just hit the refresh button and the drawing should come up, at least, that's how I get it to show :)

 

http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/album_pic.php?pic_id=1407

 

whoa okay now it's not working....hmmmm okay I guess I'll save it and email to you

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have an HKS twin power on my stock turbo car, ie 83, and don't have a tach adapter and all works well. You can tell the difference as boost is increased, depending on your coil.

 

My MSD coil sucks, and I can blow out the spark at 19 psi, hook up the twin power, and it works fine. Of course the 300ZX coil will fire higher without the twin power.

 

One thing to consider, wire it up in such a way that you can take it out of the loop, and connect everything back stock, by using different connectors. That is what I did, and if I suspect the twin power is malfunctioning, its simple to take it out and revert back to stock ignition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bastaad525

Yep I always have wired my MSD like that, in a way that I could switch back to stock w/o much hassle. I'm using the Blaster 2 coil but that should be fine since I'm only running 10psi.

 

What should I gap the spark plugs at? Also, what plug do you guys usually use? Or I should say what heat range of NGK's :-D ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did my setyp with the 6A and the 8910HEI tack adapter. I did not have to run the stock coil to get the tack to work. Very simple to do. You use the stock power transistor, the stock harness, and hook up the tack adapter wires from the (8910HEI) to the black wire and the blue wires. One of the blue wires is for the tack and the other is for the coil. they are connected together on the stock configuration and they stay that way for the MSD box. You use the electronic ignition connector from the MSD box to connect it to the system and it works excellent, very clean.

The question of using the MSD box or not, well there again it gives you a few advantages like the multi spark to 3K rpm. You get with the right coil 45,000 volts out of the coil, it is the big blur transformer type coil. I cant remember the name on the coil.

The one thing that you will have to do when you start getting up into the higher boost levels is to gap the plugs to .025 because even with the bigger coil, at the higher boost levels you will start getting misfires with the standard plug gap suggested by Nissan.

Other then that, the MSD box is an excellent addition to a turbo car and works very well. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure if I should start a new post or not, but what do people think of the rev limiters built into the MSD box? At this point, that would be the only reason for me to install an MSD - to get a rev limiter I can launch from, to help consistancy for drag racing...

 

I've heard the engines can load down with fuel on an ignition based rev limiter. The MSD is supposed to avoid that by only pulling spark out of a cylinder once, and letting it spark the next time around, but how well does it work? Will it depend on how much throttle you are giving it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...