Iroll65coronet4speed
Active Member
Hello Everyone,
I Hope what I am about to post regarding my brand new MSD 6AL Digital box (Part # 6425). This post may be a little long but I hope this bit of information helps someone out there. Please... if anyone has anyone any information to help me then please weigh in.
First... I have a brand new 493 Stroker built to go in my 65 Coronet 500. I went with the Mopar vacuum advance/magnetic pick up distributor and am (hopefully) going to use the MSD box to send some spark to the holes. I set the engine up on my test stand 4 weekends ago. In a nut shell, we were not getting spark out of the MSD box at cranking RPM. After quadruple checking the wiring we could not find anything wrong with the set up against the diagram supplied in the MSD manual. The box would NOT spark while cranking the engine no matter what we tried.... even hooking the small red wire directly to the battery positive post to eliminate any chance of voltage drop during cranking. If you left everything hooked up and removed the distributor and turned it by hand (a little faster then the starter would crank it I guess) then it would throw a spark out of the coil wire you could weld with! Set the distributor back into the engine and crank it... nothing. I tried a second distributor and a second coil and still no change.
Since this was the first start up to break in the cam on my engine and re-priming the engine 3 times because of the excessive cranking I called MSD. They told me about the test procedure to tell if the box was operating and I performed the test (with the jumper wire/in the directions). The test showed the box to be operating the way it was designed but this problem of no spark during cranking the engine was still there. After 2 more weekends messing with this thing I finally called MSD again and asked them if they would take it back and exchange me another box. They agreed and I went to the auto parts store, explained to them what was going on, gave them the guy's name at MSD and they exchanged the box. I thought my problems was solved.... no chance! The second box done the same thing.
After cranking the hell out of my brand new engine and still not hearing this bad boy come to life I finally hooked the ol' trusty orange box up and the engine finally fired up and we broke the engine in with no problems.
I call MSD for the third time and told them the second box did not work and the rest of the story. I told the tech guy that is was almost like there needed to be some type of amplifier in the system so it would spark during cranking (I even purchased a new battery with 810 cranking amps). This must have triggered something in his brain and after he put me on hold for a few minutes, he came back and basically told me that the Mopar magnetic pick up distributors were "hit and miss" (LMAO!!!!!/again I tried 2 with the same results) and he told me that I would basically have to use the orange box to trigger the distributor and the MSD box would handle the multi spark and the rev limiter. How he told me how to wire this was to take the original positive from the orange box and hook it to the small red wire on the MSD harness. Take the original coil negative and hook into the white wire from the MSD harness (white wire originally not used with a magnetic distributor). Then he told me to hook the orange (coil positive) and black (coil negative) from the MSD harness to the coil. This is supposed to allow the orange box to trigger the distributor and since the MSD box is hooked to the coil I will get the benefits or the multi spark below 3000 rpm and the rev limiter.
Thanks for reading this. As far as I know, there is nothing on the internet about this. Surely not anything in the MSD directions and I hope it help someone out. Honestly, I have not tried this to see if it works but if this post gets any interest, I will certainly let you guys know how it works out.
Honestly I wished I would have stayed away from MSD because I still have to use my original orange box. I have seen on the net of a original type box from 4secondsflat.com and Don over there has been a great help on other issues. They sell a really nice set up that looks original and has all of the benefits of a capacitive discharge system and a rev limiter.
Thanks guys....
David
I Hope what I am about to post regarding my brand new MSD 6AL Digital box (Part # 6425). This post may be a little long but I hope this bit of information helps someone out there. Please... if anyone has anyone any information to help me then please weigh in.
First... I have a brand new 493 Stroker built to go in my 65 Coronet 500. I went with the Mopar vacuum advance/magnetic pick up distributor and am (hopefully) going to use the MSD box to send some spark to the holes. I set the engine up on my test stand 4 weekends ago. In a nut shell, we were not getting spark out of the MSD box at cranking RPM. After quadruple checking the wiring we could not find anything wrong with the set up against the diagram supplied in the MSD manual. The box would NOT spark while cranking the engine no matter what we tried.... even hooking the small red wire directly to the battery positive post to eliminate any chance of voltage drop during cranking. If you left everything hooked up and removed the distributor and turned it by hand (a little faster then the starter would crank it I guess) then it would throw a spark out of the coil wire you could weld with! Set the distributor back into the engine and crank it... nothing. I tried a second distributor and a second coil and still no change.
Since this was the first start up to break in the cam on my engine and re-priming the engine 3 times because of the excessive cranking I called MSD. They told me about the test procedure to tell if the box was operating and I performed the test (with the jumper wire/in the directions). The test showed the box to be operating the way it was designed but this problem of no spark during cranking the engine was still there. After 2 more weekends messing with this thing I finally called MSD again and asked them if they would take it back and exchange me another box. They agreed and I went to the auto parts store, explained to them what was going on, gave them the guy's name at MSD and they exchanged the box. I thought my problems was solved.... no chance! The second box done the same thing.
After cranking the hell out of my brand new engine and still not hearing this bad boy come to life I finally hooked the ol' trusty orange box up and the engine finally fired up and we broke the engine in with no problems.
I call MSD for the third time and told them the second box did not work and the rest of the story. I told the tech guy that is was almost like there needed to be some type of amplifier in the system so it would spark during cranking (I even purchased a new battery with 810 cranking amps). This must have triggered something in his brain and after he put me on hold for a few minutes, he came back and basically told me that the Mopar magnetic pick up distributors were "hit and miss" (LMAO!!!!!/again I tried 2 with the same results) and he told me that I would basically have to use the orange box to trigger the distributor and the MSD box would handle the multi spark and the rev limiter. How he told me how to wire this was to take the original positive from the orange box and hook it to the small red wire on the MSD harness. Take the original coil negative and hook into the white wire from the MSD harness (white wire originally not used with a magnetic distributor). Then he told me to hook the orange (coil positive) and black (coil negative) from the MSD harness to the coil. This is supposed to allow the orange box to trigger the distributor and since the MSD box is hooked to the coil I will get the benefits or the multi spark below 3000 rpm and the rev limiter.
Thanks for reading this. As far as I know, there is nothing on the internet about this. Surely not anything in the MSD directions and I hope it help someone out. Honestly, I have not tried this to see if it works but if this post gets any interest, I will certainly let you guys know how it works out.
Honestly I wished I would have stayed away from MSD because I still have to use my original orange box. I have seen on the net of a original type box from 4secondsflat.com and Don over there has been a great help on other issues. They sell a really nice set up that looks original and has all of the benefits of a capacitive discharge system and a rev limiter.
Thanks guys....
David
