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Anyone setup an MS to run the VR Dist?


naviathan

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The problem isn't the VR sensor as much as the advance mechanism, which alters the VR sensor's timing. Accessing the sensor signal itself looks like it's just a matter of cutting the green and red wires inside the distributor. It looks like I'll be able to take a look at what would be required to lock out the advance mechanism sometime this week if all goes well.

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When I first brought up MS-II, I set it up for spark control with the stock 280z dizzy. To lock out the mechanical advance, you can drill a hole through the "rotor shaft assembly" (#9 below) and put a roll pin through the entire shaft. Block off the hole for the vacuum canister to keep crud from getting in.

 

I had trouble getting the car to run well at first, so I decided to take the ignition out of the equation by going fuel-only with a 280zx N/A dizzy. Once I got a decent fuel table, I didn't go back to spark control with the stock dizzy but went all-out with EDIS and a WB02.

 

So, I'm pretty sure that my early problems were all fuel related. The car did run and the ignition events from the VR sensor were reliable. I'm setting up another one of our Z's using the VR dizzy this week. I'll post here if I run into any trouble.

 

distributor%2079-81zx.gif

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Matt - Awesome, I can't wait to see what you find.

HizAndHerz - This is great, I was hoping I wouldn't be going at this lone ranger style. Hopefully we can get a full on Z install write up with the stock VR dist and not make things so daunting with having to find a turbo dist.

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I'm running a locked '82 n/a vr dizzy to control spark as well. I took a more...er...permanent approach to it. I first took out the vacuum advance mechanism and tach welded the plate that the magnet sits on to the stationary plate it rotates on (if you look at the diagram above, I did it right where the line from the #8 points). I then assembled it like normal, but instead of putting the screw in under the rotor that holds the #9 shaft to the #12 shaft, I stuck another tach weld in there to hold them in position.

 

Works great so far. It's no longer disassembleable, but zx's are plentiful enough around here in the junk yards, I can just get another one if the reluctor goes out or something.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was looking at my dizzy today, I told you wrong, I didn't want to weld the weights because I was afraid they would be welded "off balance" so I welded the advance plate to the shaft piece. I welded #8 to it's self basically so it doesn't move. then cleaned and greased everything, took the springs off the weights. It was working fine till i took it apart tonight and removed one of the two VR pickups lol now i don't have any signal. Gonna play with it more tomorrow.

 

Let me know what Matt comes up with, I'd really like to have MS run it directly instead of having to use the HEI module.

 

-Ed

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Will do. I completely removed the mechanical advance on mine and welded the advance plate for the vacuum to the base plate. This way if I need to re phase my rotor button all I do is loosen the screw in the top of the shaft and turn it then tighten it back down. I think I need to turn my rotor button again. Tonight I'll probably pull out the distributor and start tearing it back down again. I'll probably swap out the pick ups and leave the reluctor coil in as it ohms out good and provides a good signal. Not to mention I already extended the wires on it. They're soldered and heat shrink wrapped with and extra 3" of wire to bring it out of the dizzy a bit more.

The thing that is killing me right now is that when I try to physically adjust my dist it pushes the timing really far ATDC. Just to get it to start I had to set the trigger to -10 (10 ATDC) so something is way out. I realized the irony of my whole situation last night. I've built several of these MS-II ECus for other people and so far I haven't had a complaint. They load the configs and go, but when I go to install one myself, I can't get things going for nothing.

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Ok, here's my locked out distributor setup.

 

distributor79-81zx.jpg

 

Not having the mechanical unit in place enables me to be able to adjust the rotor alignment by simply loosening the top screw and turning it to where ever I need it aligned to. Still figuring that part out though. Just though everyone would be interested in seeing this.

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What effect would having my input trigger set to rising trigger have on the MS? I must have forgotten to change that to Rising as Matt pointed out to me in an email today.

 

The wrong edge generally causes the timing to move around with RPM, and may make for a bad trigger angle. You should be able to get the engine to run with the wrong input capture, but your timing will be off.

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I seem to be getting a steadier signal now, but it still wants me to set -10 before it will start. I didn't have a lot of time to screw with it last night, but I'm going to work more on it tonight. Also last night I noticed at some point I blew the fuses on both my injector lines. What would have caused that? I replaced them and everything seems fine now.

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