Cheap & EZ Ignition upgrade for 1.6 DOHC guys

Bumpysbro · Post by **Bumpysbro** » August 8th, 2007, 9:47 pm

im planning on this as well tunes. i have a 95 rs and i already drilled the cap and put a power tower on it, got everything i need just waiting on the disty which i get today sometime. ima cut the tower off that and wire it up and it should work. are you going to do it that way? aries did it before he swaped the bp in.

ho bag · Post by **ho bag** » August 9th, 2007, 8:40 am

Hmmm If you do find a cap that works i think we shoudl rewrite this and move it to the FAQ section.

I would love to run a HEI and Blaster 2 in the RS and run a slightly larger gap.

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 9th, 2007, 3:14 pm

Well I may have found a cap that fits.. its from a 89 323 non turbo.. the cap is taller than the protege caps and is actually taller than the stock cap. I am still looking for a Rotor that will work now. Cost of the cap was $18. I wont be able to check out the GTX/XR2/B6T cap till saturday at the earliest.

Since my current disty didnt throw any codes when it died.. I am hoping its the coil that went bad.. my original stock disty threw a code 4 when it died.. which is a "No SGT signal".. which I "Think" is the ignitor module.. The coil is the only thing I know of that can die in the disty and not throw a code.. so its possible I can make one "Good" disty out of 2 bad ones and then use the remaining "Bad" one to mock up this HEI Distributor setup.

I'll post more as I get things done.

Tunes67

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 10th, 2007, 6:28 pm

Well that 323 cap didnt fit.. and I dont think that cap from the GTX or XR2 (B6T engines) will fit it either. So I just bit the bullet and bought a MSD Power Tower from my local race shop and modded my distributor cap. I'll post pics of this later on.. likely I will do a FAQ with pics on how to do the HEI setup on the 94-95 RS Cars. I want to make sure it all works as it should before I start posting more stuff up about it. Though if Ariesdude has done it.. then apparently it will work as its supposed to.

Tunes67

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » August 10th, 2007, 9:38 pm

Yes it will definitely work - 94+ distys are *similar* to v6 distys. Be very careful with drilling caps though - the old disty cap (which i shouldnt have used at all) cracked into a million pieces on the first try sending the drill bit about 1/4 inch into right where the index finger joins the palm area - needed 4 stitches. But it was amusing to see the look on the valet parking girl's face when i drove up to the ER with one hand wrapped in a blood soaked/dripping paper towel.
Moral of the story - you will be fine if you drill into a new cap that was not ever exposed to the engine heat.

I saw better idling and improved pedal response after the module - external coil didnt help that much - but in my case an alternator upgrade helped a lot more than the hei i think....

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 10th, 2007, 11:08 pm

Wow.. glad my cap didnt shatter like that

I did use a old cap too.. but I also went at a slow speed on the drill press and used a new Titanium coated drill bit.. didnt seem to have a problem. Where did you drill your cap? I drilled mine through the top of the original coil tower.. looks like I may need to drill out that coil tower hole though since it tapers and the head of the screw for the power tower only goes in 2/3 of the way. I am still working on this.. I really want a clean install.. I wish the power tower was black and not red too.. LOL stealth HEI

Anyway.. I will start a thread with pics n such when I am satisfied with the results.

On a side note.. Frankendisty actually fired.. thats what I am calling the distributor I made out of 2 bad distributors.. one had a bad coil and the other a bad igniter module.. so with one good one of each.. I made Frankendisty and put it on the RS.. she fired right up LOL I hate mitsushitsi

Tunes67

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » August 11th, 2007, 1:15 am

I drilled right about here

There is a metal strip in that channel that runs all the way to the center (rotor contact) - If you can make the power tower screw contact that metal - it will be fine. Make sure you put a lot of sealant on the exposed metal so that the spark doesnt jump prematurely to any of the plugs.

For clean install, I was seriously thinking about actually fitting a SOHC disty in there with a HEI and external coil - i didnt know the specs for the cam angle sensors in SOHC vs DOHC and the SOHC disty wont fit into the cam slot without some "alterations" (i am not entirely sure but it looked like it wont go in when i tried a rough fit). If it can be made to fit though you will have an instant old style disty with the extra "nipple" that will still run DOHC ecu....

I might still try this mod on the BP especially since my ZETEC swap plan is fizzling out....

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 11th, 2007, 1:26 am

Thats where I came through on my cap as well.. I doubt there will be any arcing at all.. I stayed completely inside the original coil tower tube.. I will have to put that back on the drill press tomorrow and round out that tube a bit more so the screw for the power tower goes all the way through. I show pics in a couple of days. Since the RS is running again.. it can make it back home where I will be able to take my time getting the HEI mod done. I dont trust that Frankendisty thats in there.. it will die at any point. Probably where it would suck the most LOL

Tunes67

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 11th, 2007, 11:59 pm

Well I finished the HEI mod on my RS today.. runs excellent. My buttdyno detects at least a 5 whp increase.. just seems a lot peppier and she fires INSTANTLY. That caught me by complete surprise how quick it was running when I turned the key. Will be interesting to see if my gas mileage improves.

One thing of note though.. I tried to use my completely bad disty for this.. the one that has a bad coil and a bad ignitor and it wouldnt fire.. threw a code 4 (which is what code it threw when that ignitor module failed back in march february sometime) so I swapped out ignitor modules and cleared the code and tried again (yes I tried to clear codes with the bad disty and tried it before I swapped the IM's) and she fired up instantly. So while the engine is actually running on the HEI module and coil.. apparently there is some kind of "Self Test" the ecu does of the IM before it sends the trigger signal to the IM. So.. long story short.. while I am running on the HEI module and canister coil.. I am still dependent on that Mitsushitsi ignitor module in the disty.. even though its not actually firing the coil. I am still running the bad coil that I hacked the end of the coil tower off of. I still have my good OEM coil set aside.

Thoughts on this? I will post a complete write up with pics once I have all the "Bugs" worked out.

Tunes67

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » August 12th, 2007, 2:55 am

Which wires did you cut for the install?

You have to cut the orange wire *and* the ground wire next to it. If you see the wiring diagram the ignitor module has 3 connections.

1) Trigger from ECU (orange wire)
2) Ground
3) Internal connection to the coil

If the module is bad it can still short circuit the coil to ground and the HEI module would be uselessly trying to raise the dead from ground

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 12th, 2007, 12:30 pm

Thats what Shameem said as well.. and while I am not trying to be argumentative here.. I would like to point out that in this diagram here (pg G-21 of the shop manual)

The wire I cut (E) which is the orange wire.. IS the ground wire and the Black w/ Orange (F) is the wire to the IM. However.. yesterday I was reading that page upside down and not noticing the location of the 3 wire plug in relation to the 5 wire plug as I am now. I couldnt see "Why" also cutting the ground wire would isolate the IM.. now I see why.. cause I have already cut it and I still needed to cut the main wire to it. When I was looking at this yesterday.. I thought the Black w/ Orange wire was to the Main Relay.. and I figured that would be a bad wire to cut so I didnt cut it

Now it all makes sense, I just didnt want to hack a wire I wasnt sure of.

Heh.. thanks for putting up with me while I figured this crap out LOL

Tunes67

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » August 12th, 2007, 2:10 pm

You interpreted the diagram "differently" - Happens to the best of us.....

Here it is - moment of zen - from page z-032

On the side - I discovered a free image manipulation program called paint.net which is really good - i am trying to get my system to replace mspaint with this program....

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 12th, 2007, 3:20 pm

That doesnt make sense.. wouldnt be the first time the shop manual was messed up about something. But according to that page G-21, the orange wire is either a Ground or is the SGC signal wire. Which if thats true.. then the black w/ orange is either a IM wire.. or its the main relay. That schematic from z-032 showes the colors of the wires on the plug.. but it doesnt show the plugs in relation to each other on the distributor. Or which way the plug attaches onto the disty. I'll freely admit that I am not all that great at reading schematics.. but one of those pages is messed up LOL

Tunes67

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » August 12th, 2007, 4:37 pm

Yes i see it - the page g-21 is messed up - it shows the yellow/blue tach wire as the middle wire - but it was definitely not in the middle in my disty harness - probably some mazda tech did a quick copy/paste from the v6 page without thinking too much....

By the way - p z32 also has connector pinouts on the bottom..... that seems like reliable info and definitely in line with what i saw & did.....

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » August 14th, 2007, 5:41 pm

It also shows the "Orange" wire as being a "Ground" when its obviously not. They have the Orange and Black w/Orange wires reversed on the page G21. Though they dont actually mark the wire color just the wire location.
Its not a big deal really. And it runs fine with the Black w/ Orange wire uncut as well. Anyway.. I will do a write up with pics in a little while. I need to mod another disty cap anyway and I want to do it differently this time. Better pics and a better job in general now that I know how its going to turn out.

Tunes67