Talking through an ignition problem

[CP241]

This is a down and dirty diagram I put together when I put the chrysler module in my old G9. I ran the solenoid power to the module and to the ballast resistor/coil directly. Same principle I think should work with the ford module

[trig123]

Originally Posted by CP241

This is a down and dirty diagram I put together when I put the chrysler module in my old G9. I ran the solenoid power to the module and to the ballast resistor/coil directly. Same principle I think should work with the ford module

I have read this >
DuraSpark ignition modules were so prone to failing, that Ford techs referred to them as NeverSpark!

Maybe there would be no benefit using one on the robbin 4 stroke.

The one I had was wired incorrect . Cartmaster and CP241 were correct. The person who give it to me was incorrect on how he suggested I wire it.
Red needed to be seeing 12 volts, not going to coil. White should have been left off.

I do wish I would have wired it correct just to see how it would have ran with stock coil. I think the way we wired it caused it to fail pretty quick causing volts to jump all over the place. When I did wire it the way CM suggested it was already too late. It did start fast and ran good while it lasted. Only a few minutes and then toast.
I hope I find another in the next few weeks so I can try it wired correct.

One more thing to add is if I did make this ezgo engine run good using the ford module would it last ? Where would I mount it on cart to be sure heat didn't take it out early ?

There is still hope we can find something cheap and reliable to keep these robbin engines firing.

Thanks CP and CM for the help on this ford thing
Maybe more to come later.

[Cartmaster]

I am only here for a few minutes, but my take on this is that had we known the correct wiring right from the start, a lot of the failures we have seen could have been avoided.
I wonder if the denso being the only coil Trig got to work successfully was the low impedance on the coil.

Trig measures 3 ish ohms on the OEM coils, so in theory the ballast would possibly lower the voltage too much for those coils? Maybe without the ballast, the ezgo coil would work with both HEI modules.
We may never know

[Cartmaster]

Oh, and the "never spark" comment seems to be more for the original Duraspark modules. The Duraspark 11 ( blue strain relief ) was apparently more reliable. There are other module types out there too! Red was for california! Others had different delay times etc. Maybe I should do more research on these lol. If we try the chrysler module and find success with all three, we have options available for a while.

EDITED at 08:27am British summer time!

This first article shows the differences over the years.

An interesting read if nothing else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durasp...spark%20energy.

Now this next article best explains other aspects of the Duraspark system.

Why did i not think of looking on Wiki before????????

https://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/...spark_ignition

Reading between the lines on these articles pretty much confirms that a 12v coil can or should be run without ballast. So I think my theory of why the OEM coil did not work may be correct.

[Cartmaster]

I cant edit my previous post now as it has timed out.

So Another snippet of info here that I found but cannot vouch being correct, is that some brands of HEI modules will not fire a coil designed for CDI ignition modules. Definitely worth noting as we don't know what method the OEM igniter uses to fire the coil. I do recall Trigs picture of a cut OEM module showing a large capacitor inside. This may be a factor as to why many of those other members that have tried converting the Robin twin to HEI have failed as they were using the OEM coil, which may or may not be designed for use with CDI.

[trig123]

Cartmaster
The part of not knowing how these OEM ignitors are put together is the puzzle we probably won't ever know. The one I cut into was the cheap aftermarket one.

The HEI I installed will work but we would have to find the correct coil to match the HEI. The Denso worked but I don't know for how long. The engine won't have spark timing using the HEI. Something that nobody ever mentioned when reading over past posts on how successful people were after converting. For some reason these people never show up again here.

I stuck the HEI setup back on my test motor a while ago because a friend of mine wants to try it on his cart. He liked how it ran but I told good luck on finding the right coil. I also showed him how it ran with stock coil .

The ford module ran when I first wired it up and even though I used the white wire going to solenoid. It ran good using stock coil also. The problem was I should have used the red wire instead of white. I think it would still be running if I had done that.
I don't think by me connecting the white wire to solenoid harmed the module. I may be wrong.
My friends suggestion of connecting the red wire to coil is what fried it ? I think. I just remember the voltage was all over the place when I would check ballast after we connected red to coil.
I will try and find another one and this time I wire it with red wire to solenoid. Lesson learned

[CP241]

I’m thinking those people never show back up because we told them nobody has gotten one to work right or reliably. Then they post and say it’s great no problem and disappear. I think it didn’t actually work as advertised but unlike myself and you, I’ll admit freely I was wrong and it failed. Some people have a hard time with that

[trig123]

Originally Posted by CP241

I’m thinking those people never show back up because we told them nobody has gotten one to work right or reliably. Then they post and say it’s great no problem and disappear. I think it didn’t actually work as advertised but unlike myself and you, I’ll admit freely I was wrong and it failed. Some people have a hard time with that

I messed up a lot in my life. The latest was this Ford Module.

Here is what I found out about the module. If you go to rockauto you see this when viewing the ford module.

To prevent premature failure of the new ICM , manufactures recommend replacing the ignition coil at the same time. Well, that won't work in my case. Where would I find a coil to match the Ford Module ? that would fit on this ezgo engine.
I doubt people pay much attention to this when they buy it.

[Cartmaster]

This is something I was wondering after I made my comments yesterday regarding the coil. Going by what I have gleaned from the car forums, early days of conversions used the original coils with a ballast and the red wire was fed full 12 volts as designed. Later car conversions used a 12 volt coil and dropped the ballast. The red wire was still fed 12 volts. The white wire was only used in the start position of the key or "I" terminal of the older style solenoid. Later it was found that the "I" did not drop pack to 0 volts but still had residual low voltage and the white wire was moved to the S terminal on the solenoid and functioned better for starting. If starting was not an issue then the white wire was not used at all. Most of the time the modules were used with a distributor that had mechanical, vacuum or both timing advance. With engines running higher compression etc the timing was advanced on the distributor and the white wire came back into play for easier starting.
We do not have a distributor, so we have no mechanical timing control, and we need a full waste spark dual output coil to overcome this lack of a distributor. We will then see stuttering with either the wrong coil type or timing too retarded at higher revs than normal running speeds.
If we have the correct type and voltage coil to match either with or without the ballast, and correct voltage power connection to the module we should be able to run any of these brands of HEI module.

Something that has not been addressed yet is the fact that 9v coils and ballasts were originally used to protect the points in a distributor. With the introduction of electronic ignition, the reluctor style pickup no longer needed the lower voltage for protection even though many cars still used the pink resistor wire (not a ceramic ballast) to keep coils running cooler.

I may expand on this later. But we seem to be understanding the lack of feedback from forum members that claim to have got the robin to run on an HEI. We now also see why some cart conversion only run well at lower revs and struggle at WOT especially those running tweaked governors.

[Cartmaster]

Just an added thought. If I can get the relevant confirmation, I believe many ford four pot coils are actually two dual output coils in one box. If we can isolate two outputs on the same secondary winding, we now have a dual output coil.
I know some of these coils are like this as I have in fact used them on an HEI conversion on an Austin mini. When I had a misfire, I swapped two pairs of leads at the coil and the misfire moved to the other two cylinders which isolated the fault to one half of the coil. Measuring the impedence proved one secondary was breaking down and the coil was replaced. So maybe a standard Ford coil will work for this application. If the coil has dual primaries, we just use half of the coil pack, if it has a common primary, can we just short both unused outputs to ground or link them with a short HT lead to prevent that side firing?

I refer back to this article by Hella. If you scroll down to the explanation of the dual output coil, look at the diagram after the image and you can see it shows two separately triggered dual coils for a four cylinder engine This should work for us by just using one of these.

https://www.hella.com/techworld/uk/T...ion-coil-2886/

Too many questions but the answer is there somewhere!

EDIT.

I think we just need to confirm what voltage a particular coil requires and use the ballast on the low voltage ones. Modern quality coils will give us better spark intensity over the OEM. And Trig had already proved this with the Denso coil. The impedence of the Denso also tells us it requires the ballast.

A lucas coil part # L356100 is a dual coil rated at 12 volts. Probably a perfect coil for any of those HEI Modules.

Hella have this one.

Hella Ignition Coil 5DA 358 168-251

Originally Posted by trig123

One more thing to add is if I did make this ezgo engine run good using the ford module would it last ? Where would I mount it on cart to be sure heat didn't take it out early ?

Recommended mounting on ford's was either just mounted directly to the inner fender or on spacers to allow air to flow behind the module. Most were just mounted directly. As long as it is away from a heat source, it should be fine. Maybe the original ezgo mounting plate for the existing parts is good, as all wiring is right there too.

If this module can be made to work, it would look better than the other brands too. It has a more factory look to it. The GM was designed to be inside a distributor and the other I have only seen images of but looks a bit heath Robinson in the pictures I have seen on here.

Trigs comment regarding the OEM coil not working with the GM HEI seems to tie in with what I read about them not working with CDI coils. The source I found this info on says it may be that they apparently sense the draw from the coil and compensate by altering the output voltage for firing the coil. Again, more questions looking for answers. Another possible reason for the engine starting but not running at higher revs on the OEM coil.