MSD, Pertronix, or FBO

[Ornamental]

my personal experience with The FBO systems is as we replaced every part of the FBO with stock Mopar dist & MSD or pertronics coil  the cars performance has improved with the exception of the ECU

So in your experience, at least the FBO ECU is good stuff, even if the rest isn't as good?

I'm thinking of buying one of those and have my old as spare (even if I'm very PO at FBO due to a late delivery that ended up costing me a lot of $$$, because I trusted the promised ship off time, AND NOT A REPLY FROM DON AT ALL to my complaint. Seems like he's all ears before he gets the money, but deaf when FBO screws up).

[Chryco Psycho]

Yes I have found the coil fails ballasts fast
& the dist do not work as well as stock Mopar
 the ECU does outperform the Mopar Orange box
I know what you men about being deaf after you pay your money

[LAA66]

 I had my (mopar electronic ignition) distributor checked, and recurved then installed it with the rest of the kit and realized a noticeable improvement in power, idle, and starting ease.   

 I believe the FBO system messed up the tach in mine though. An R/T eng, refitted unit. Maybe a change in the input from the coil I am guessing. 

[moper]

Don's knowledge is not suspect. However, I don't feel it's any better than anything a guy can do with $25 and a few nice afternoons. STandard Ignition's module has the same output as his (both more than  MP and Std has a better track record from what I see/hear than both FBO and MP). The coil is nothing special, along the lines of an Accell Super coil in a stock appearing case. I have heard of plenty of FBO issues, from wrong setup (you're paying for experience so you can install them under your favorite tree, remember?) to bad coils and modules to service/response issues. In thier defense, FBO is busy and everyone's opinion on response time is varied... I've had issues too by others' opinions. In any event, the MSD Billet with the small cap clears a shaker on my buddies 440+6 Cuda. The large cap won't and I'm not sure it will fit every combination. SO that may require some engineering. But, as far as quality, I've had zero MSD failures out of 20 or so as far back as the late 80s. I still have some units that are 18 years old and running fine. Never had a Blaster coil go bad, although one did leak after a year. I didnt notice it for a while, but I had to replace it. My next small block will get the completely self contained MSD billet. I hope they do one for a big block too.

[Chryco Psycho]

the MSD Vibration Blaster is designed to mount horizontally & will not leak , the regular blasters are not
 , I have had multiple MSD failures & have quit using them , as well as multiple Pertronics failures , I still use Pertronics coils but not the dist module . I have never had a Problem with a Mallory or Crane ign & they are 1/2 the price of the MSD & do not use chips for rev limit either although I am sure the Crane is no longer available unless there si some old stock sitting around

[71chally416]

I've had zero MSD failures out of 20 or so as far back as the late 80s. I still have some units that are 18 years old and running fine.

Dittos here Moper. They wouldn't be around after all these years and about every professional racer wouldn't be using them if they were making junk that was unreliable.

[moper]

I have heard of them failing. I'm sure there are some. So who knows. But if it's a "which one is first choice" its MSD for me every time. Did someone end up buying Jacobs Ignition? They made a killer control box. And it was also multispark. I heard they got sold.  That stuff made MSD look cheap tho.

[dodge freak 2]

Funny how people are when it comes to certain brands 

Last summer when I sent my MSD box in for a check up (no problems found) I ran a old Accel dual point dist...darn thing work pretty well and had super fast start up time, just crank and fired up a split second later..fast than my MSD 7 box. Heck I was even thinking of keeping it and selling my MSD box on e-bay since I know it bring in good money (gas prices were killing me) but then the old points started messing up, had a slight misfire when got and hot..could have brought new points for $35 for it but I threw the old MSD box back on and got MSD E-cruve dist...when gas prices were coming back down.

That MSD E-cruve dist is sweet, I can change the advance cruve settings by two dials-no springs-I set it up last fall and haven't touch it yet this year..gives the motor perfect timing all the time..I watched it with a timing light, no bounce, no mater how fast I revved and snap the throttle back...but $400+ just for the dist isn't cheap  lol 

[moper]

freak, the new E-curve doesnt need the MSD box... So it's $375 and drop it in, not the $290 plus the $230 for the box, and all the wires. It ends up cheaper...lol

[dodge freak 2]

Yeah but MSD techs told me that even their 6 box puts out a hotter spark so I hook my 7 box up to the dist..well the dist triggers the box and the box fires the coil...I had a nice HVC coil and the E-cruve dist can not use that coil...so I would have spent another $35 for a different coil.

Never tried to run the motor just off the E-cruve dist...but you can certainty run it that way and would be clean and neater looking.

[dodge freak 2]

One thing I learn with dealing with a super strong spark is any weak part of the spark plug wires will show up.

EX...2 summers ago had a misfire once the motor was fully heated up. Shut it off and go shopping, 30 mins later motor would run fine for the first 5 mins. My half a** MSD plug wires were just 2 months old--could not be them right--change a bunch of stuff, cap, rotor, pick up, etc...so I switched boxes to an old 6 box...motor ran great with no misfire for an hour straight...so it had to be my 7 box bad I thought.

Sent the 7 box back to MSD..2 weeks later it comes back no problems found--WHAT? I hooked it back up, misfire came back. Boy I am mad..I go yelling over the phone at a MSD tech guy that why isn't my 7 box fix...he calmly explain to me the box had to be OK. We start to talk and think whats going on..his guess was that the 7 box stronger spark is finding a ground that the 6 box doesn't have the power to find.

I pull each plug wire off and lord and behold one wire had a crack plug boot...I go warping tape around the plug boot, problem goes away.

Long story short...the 7 box found the crack boot and misfire to ground while the 6 box wasn't strong enough.

Explains why a stock 1970 motor could run 7mm wires for 3-4 years without a misfire..you go throw a hot spark box on an old set of plug wires you then have a misfire...its not the box but the wires..but it sure looks like its the boxes fault. 

[Justins72]

Has anyone used the MSD Digital Programable 6AL2?