What ignition part is this guy talking about?

[Guest tony78_280z]

I found this quote here-->http://www.centuryperformance.com/timing.asp Which is a very informative site on timing. But then he goes on to describe ignition upgrades. What part is he talking about here?

Performance Ignition Units are a great upgrade if you are "really" upgrading your engine and vehicle combination or put your vehicle through driving styles that could use some ignition help (racing, towing, off-road, harsh climates ... "like you do not believe in tune-ups"). An electronic or capacitive discharge ignition will help your engine burn more fuel as well as give your engine the ability to safely reach higher RPMs (than it is designed to do so). The added output that the ignition unit tells the coil to give out will really help your engine survive longer, make more power, as well as lower emissions, and be consistent in winning races. You can gain in performance with an aftermarket ignition control in efficiency, faster starting, smoother performance, higher RPM, and lower emissions.

 

Of course I'll have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He doesn't believe in MSD systems.

Want another misnomer? Well, this one is on multi-strike ignition systems. Well, you probably may not have guessed it, but the analog multi-strike has less time as engine RPM increases to get off as many sparks. Do these extra sparks help your engine? Not really, the major concern is the actual spark duration in "Crank Degrees" that you have for each spark on each cycle. Most aftermarket ignition manufacturers give you 20° of spark duration with each spark. Now, this spark will not carry full voltage over the entire 20° . As the spark duration continues it loses voltage output. The reason behind the longer spark is to make sure there is a complete and thorough burn of the air fuel mixture. With high dome pistons, tight valve shrouding and other issues, you can get portions of your mixture that do not get a decent ignition. By holding the spark up to 20° of crankshaft duration you virtually eliminate these problems (if your engine is in proper tune). Having a greater voltage hold over the entire 20° should be more of a concern to you than peak voltage output.

I believe an MSD system actualy drops off in number of sparks as RPM goes up. But it does maintain a strong healthy single spark. This guy is probably one of those old guys who doesn't see the advance of technology. Isn't an MSD system a type of Ignition Unit as he describes in the first quote?

[Guest Phil1934]

We got the stroker Ford done for one of my co-workers. He had to have an MSD. It didn't work so we went back to factory. Here's a schematic for a $35 ignition box.

[Nismo280zEd]

I believe he is basically talking about electronic ignition instead of using point type for controling spark. He does have a point though, getting a longer stronger spark would be more beneficial for engine efficiency, however, if your running nos, or blown motor, you can't have that big a spark, it'll go out. So the multiple spark allows for better burn in those scenarios.

-Ed

[JMortensen]

This is my understanding of capacitive discharge in general and MSD.

 

MSD IS MULTIPLEcapacitive discharge sparks. MSD gives 3 sparks up to 3000 rpm, then reverts to 1 spark. Capacitive discharge means exactly what he said, a capacitor stores up energy and hits the coil with a higher voltage to get more spark out of it, but the actual length of the spark duration is shorter in any capacitive discharge setup AFAIK, because the capacitor dumps this higher voltage to the coil all at once, instead of letting it build during a longer dwell period. Maybe there are other capacitive discharge units that don't have multiple sparks like MSD does, but that shouldn't change the duration of the spark AFAIK, and I admit I am a little fuzzy on this, but that's what everything that I've read says. This is a selling point that is touted by companies like Electromotive that have multiple coils. They always sell these as having a super long duration and hence a longer and stronger spark.

 

From Electromotive's site http://www.electromotive-inc.com/products.html

FIRST SOLUTION: the C.D.(Capacitive Discharge) Ignition. This Ignition does not CHARGE the Ignition Coil, rather it uses the 1:100 Winding ratio as a TRANSFORMER. First the 12 volts of your electrical system is converted to 200-500 volts and stored in a CAPACITOR, when the SPARK is needed the CAPACITOR is DISCHARGED into your Ignition Coil, Instantly producing a SPARK of 30,000 to 50,000 volts with a DURATION of only 0.1 to 0.3 milliseconds (0.0003 seconds)... this is NOT A LONG SPARK !

SUPERIOR SOLUTION: Multiple Coil Ignition Systems. By using an Ignition Coil for every pair of companion Cylinders, the TIME available to CHARGE an Ignition coil goes up by a factor of 4 on an 8cyl Engine. This allows you to use the advantages inherent in an INDUCTIVE SPARK... this uses only enough voltage to ARC the gap of the Spark Plug and dissipates the rest of the SPARK ENERGY in DURATION ! up to over 2 Milliseconds (that's over 90 degrees at 8000 RPM) This MAKES MORE POWER !

So, no matter which of our Products you choose, you will always know that the Ignition System is STATE OF THE ART and READY FOR ANYTHING !

 

I'm not impressed with some of the other stuff the guy is saying either, especially that first quote you've got there Tony. Sounds like a bunch of BS to me. Why would better spark allow you to rev the engine higher safely? I could see how you could say that more accurately timed sparks can allow you to rev higher, or how higher voltage system can make more power at higher rpms, but it sounds like he's saying you can put a magneto on your 350 and rev it to 10,000 rpm. And why would the shorter capacitive discharge spark be better when there is one, but worse when there are three as in the MSD?

 

Then there's this bit:

What really happens is that your engine (each cylinder) will ONLY use the amount of voltage it takes to jump the spark plug gap and fire the air/fuel mixture in that cylinder. Guess what I'm going to tell you now? If you guessed that I will tell you, "Your engine requires a lot less spark than what is advertised", then you are right. Yes, it's true ... even if you have a Gazillion Millijoules of advertised output, if your engine only needs 20,000 volts to jump the plug gap, that's all the unit will give. What they should tell you is that the unit "can" deliver up to that rating if the engine demands it. So, does your engine really demand that much voltage output ... probably not.

I don't know if that's true either, because I've been hit with the same coil with the ballast resistor and without, and just by taking out the ballast resistor you could DEFINITELY feel the difference and I did nothing to change my body's internal resistance to get a hotter spark the second time.

 

I'm not an ignition expert, but something stinks here...