[glhs#116]

I can't believe no one has said "stock valve springs" yet..

Sam

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by glhs#116

I can't believe no one has said "stock valve springs" yet..

Sam

Lol!

[unclescratch]

I have this unit for sale. $40.00 plus freight. Ran fine when pulled to sell my car.

[Tom Vaught]

Many years ago, my supervisor was putting together some of the first Motorsports catalogs. One of the items in that catalog was a MSD 6T ignition box for the circle track guys. The MSD Boxes were built/tested and then "Potted".

What I mean by Potted is that the wires/components could not move inside the ignition box. The Box also had one of the 1st built in Rev Limiters.

They only offered those boxes for a couple of years. Friends of mine bought the later MSD Boxes from Summit/jegs/etc and in some cases the ignitions vibrated and the boxes failed at a poor time in the race. So the "MSD fix" was "We will sell you a second box in case the first one fails".

It has been 39 years since I bought that MSD Potten Box and it has never failed therefore I have never used anything else. As I said it had the rev limiter capability.
Those chips had a lot more failures/troubles vs the actual ignition box I have.

My advice, whatever you buy, assume it will fail on the road. Be it a HEI Module (failed three of those on my Trans Am) and always carry a spare or two!!!!!!!

The optical sensors seem to run a close second on failures.

On a everyday driver or a Trip Car, I run Points and a Condenser and forget about the RPM capability.
Never had "properly cared for/adjusted" Points and Condenser EVER fail.

Tom V.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Originally Posted by unclescratch

I have this unit for sale. $40.00 plus freight. Ran fine when pulled to sell my car.

I put one of those in my Ford 2 years ago, sat new in box for >20? years, works very well. Got it from the old BD DG Super Shops.

[Schurkey]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

Many years ago, my supervisor was putting together some of the first Motorsports catalogs. One of the items in that catalog was a MSD 6T ignition box for the circle track guys. The MSD Boxes were built/tested and then "Potted".

What I mean by Potted is that the wires/components could not move inside the ignition box. The Box also had one of the 1st built in Rev Limiters.

They only offered those boxes for a couple of years.

I have a 6T out in the shop. It was a used box when I bought it, from eBay or Craigslist or whatever.

Ran it on my beater pickup for awhile (a few years) until it failed.

The 6T I have is not potted, and it has a connector to mate with an MSD rev-limiter, but the limiter is not built-in.

I keep threatening to send it in for repair. Never seem to manage to put it in a shipping box and mail it off, though. At some point, MSD won't be repairing these old boxes, and it'll be scrap.

The "potted" boxes are filled with an epoxy that hardens around all the "internals". Those boxes are not repairable, because you'd never get the circuit boards chipped out of the epoxy. Lots of MSD stuff that is not potted, is covered in "Conformal", a rubbery coating intended to prevent moisture damage. Also used on many other automotive circuit boards--my GM windshield wiper module is partly covered in Conformal, as is my cruise-control module. Fixing those is possible, but you destroy the rubbery coating in the process of re-soldering parts. I suppose a production repair facility has a vat of the stuff, and they'd just dip the circuit board into the vat after repair, to restore the coating.

A GM wiper motor circuit board, the red tinted area is covered in Conformal. I had to re-flow some solder joints to make it work again.

[Tom Vaught]

The potted material was supposed to eliminate the Vibration Failures from the Race Car ignition systems. My ignition system is probably 40 years old and still has not given me one issue. Course my 64 GTO is not a NASCAR vehicle either.

Tom V.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

Many years ago, my supervisor was putting together some of the first Motorsports catalogs. One of the items in that catalog was a MSD 6T ignition box for the circle track guys. The MSD Boxes were built/tested and then "Potted".

What I mean by Potted is that the wires/components could not move inside the ignition box. The Box also had one of the 1st built in Rev Limiters.

They only offered those boxes for a couple of years. Friends of mine bought the later MSD Boxes from Summit/jegs/etc and in some cases the ignitions vibrated and the boxes failed at a poor time in the race. So the "MSD fix" was "We will sell you a second box in case the first one fails".

It has been 39 years since I bought that MSD Potten Box and it has never failed therefore I have never used anything else. As I said it had the rev limiter capability.
Those chips had a lot more failures/troubles vs the actual ignition box I have.

My advice, whatever you buy, assume it will fail on the road. Be it a HEI Module (failed three of those on my Trans Am) and always carry a spare or two!!!!!!!

The optical sensors seem to run a close second on failures.

On a everyday driver or a Trip Car, I run Points and a Condenser and forget about the RPM capability.
Never had "properly cared for/adjusted" Points and Condenser EVER fail.

Tom V.

I feel the same way about potential failures of electronic modules. ever since switching my Pontiac (and my Olds) to HEI, I have always carried a spare module and a small tube of dielectric grease with my in the glovebox and console. It is one of the reasons I never installed an ignition box. I would have to have two.

[Formulajones]

The small add on soft touch boxes work pretty well, and can be hidden in the glove box easily.

Me personally I usually just go for a full on MSD box with capacitive discharge and take advantage of a couple other features at the same time. I figure why not if I'm going to jump in and do some wiring anyway.

I trigger those boxes with both stock points distributors (which is dead nuts reliable) and a couple others with a dedicated billet MSD distributor. All these setups have been trouble free for decades.
One is a digital 6 that I like for it's timing retard features, and it's 2 step feature. Plus it's a neat theft deterrent. Turn a couple dials and the car won't start.

Just depends on what you want to deal with.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by unclescratch

I have this unit for sale. $40.00 plus freight. Ran fine when pulled to sell my car.

Friend of mine who has a real nice original 69 COPO Camaro uses one of those. He just sets the rev limit on it, and the tach is laying in the glove box so you don't see it.

Cracks me up when he buzzes that thing, no tach to watch, and he just goes till that thing bangs the rev limiter. And bang it does, there is nothing "soft touch" about that one. LOL

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Even the boxes with the chip are very noticeable by ear, we hit it with the circle track race car when we get to Greedy low with the gear choice, quick change rear ended., MSD 7AL-2 plus.
Only lost one MSD box in 30 years of racing. ...Battery charger connection fail caused it.
You should disconnect box when you weld on car.
I moved the 6 AL’s to my old cars when we update to 7 boxes. Still going😐.
No one puts redundant ignitions in Dirt Late Models anymore.(like NASCAR).just dual pickups ( crank and dizzy) to retard timing...legal traction control!

The potted boxes kept you from hiding traction control in them🤫. I do believe I still have one too.

[Scott Roberts]

Originally Posted by glhs#116

I can't believe no one has said "stock valve springs" yet..

Sam

I would have said your right foot...

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by STEELCITYFIREBIRD

Even the boxes with the chip are very noticeable by ear, we hit it with the circle track race car when we get to Greedy low with the gear choice, quick change rear ended., MSD 7AL-2 plus.
Only lost one MSD box in 30 years of racing. ...Battery charger connection fail caused it.
You should disconnect box when you weld on car.
I moved the 6 AL’s to my old cars when we update to 7 boxes. Still going😐.
No one puts redundant ignitions in Dirt Late Models anymore.(like NASCAR).just dual pickups ( crank and dizzy) to retard timing...legal traction control!

The potted boxes kept you from hiding traction control in them🤫. I do believe I still have one too.

Yes the rev limit is very noticeable by ear with the boxes, but they drop random cylinders and are much smoother, how they get the soft touch name (also burns the raw fuel on the next cycle). Those cheaper rev limiters like the tachometer I was quoting above are very rough, like they drop all 8 cylinders at once, lol. They do the job though.

[lust4speed]

That exact model Mallory tach cost me an engine rebuild many years ago. The tach failed by reading low and since the rev limiter is off the tach it was also receiving the low reading. Probably a good reason to not have a rev limiter built into the tachometer.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Yes the rev limit is very noticeable by ear with the boxes, but they drop random cylinders and are much smoother, how they get the soft touch name (also burns the raw fuel on the next cycle). Those cheaper rev limiters like the tachometer I was quoting above are very rough, like they drop all 8 cylinders at once, lol. They do the job though.

Agree, burns the fuel in the headers, the circle track car glows the headers at the end of the straight when just touching the chip. Glow bright when on chip hard or early on straightaway.

The Mallory tach limiter truly is just a total ignition shutdown, crude but better than nothing with a drive-line failure.

[72LuxuryLeMansLa.]

Originally Posted by glhs#116

I can't believe no one has said "stock valve springs" yet..

Sam

Made me laugh! My 72 Luxury Lemans was originally a 2 barrel single exhaust 350 car. Freakin broomstick for a cam! The original owner converted it to Qjet and Dual exhaust but otherwise stock. At 4500 rpm that bad boy started bucking like it was in a rodeo! I can't wait to do the post mortem. I'm actually going to pay the machine shop to test the springs for giggles. I would bet they will laugh when they give me the results.

[goatwgn]

I ordered the MSD soft touch for circle track applications today. Has a display for the RPM, and seems to be a very easy and clean hookup to the HEI.