New ignition parts all junk?

[RJ Squirrel]

Car is a restoration project, everything new/rebuilt. Stock 1974 mopar distributor, stock coil, Ehrenburg Hirev 7500 ECU/ballast resistor, new quality ignition switch. Would not fire while cranking, but would start running after I let go of the key and returned to run position. I could unplug the starter relay trigger while it was running, turn the key to start, and it kept running fine. After all of the typical testing/diagnosis I took out the distributor and looked at the pickup coil closer, as you can see it is rotated, not aligning vertically with the reluctor and produced weak signal. It is a Standard LX-102 from Oreilleys. Looking at it from the side it was bent a little too, so I straightened it up when I installed it. I did not notice it was also rotated.
So I suppose we all need to open the boxes and look at all new parts closer now right there in the store since half of them are just complete crap.
I replaced it with a NOS pickup coil and plate assy. I found on flea-bay and it works perfectly now.

 

[Kern Dog]

Recently, I had the HI-REV ECM and ballast crap out at the same time. I had to tow my car home.

Are you ready for a real weird one? Random NO spark from a MP electronic ignition system despite numerous parts swapped around...

See post 212.

 

[RJ Squirrel]

Thats what I thought the problem was too, but turns out the combination of weak pickup coil signal and ECU being backfed through the ballast resistor during start mode caused no fire!

 

[Bee1971]

That’s Impossible

China and Mexico make Quality Parts

 

[toolmanmike]

That’s Impossible

China and Mexico make Quality Parts

 

[toolmanmike]

@HALIFAXHOPS , what's some of the junk parts you've seen?

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

Points, condensers, ballast resistors way out of specs, ECU's mostly the Mopar authorized orange boxes not too many coils, 6AL are a nightmare the newer ones. Just had a weird one aftermarket pickup with red and black wires which is 8 cyl only, dam pick up itself was a slant one, so you never know. Pretty much run from post 90 items. Barcodes and dot matrix on boxes are post 90 usually Did a lot of threads in the articles on FABO.

 

[MWbirdLOVER70]

Points, condensers, ballast resistors way out of specs, ECU's mostly the Mopar authorized orange boxes not too many coils, 6AL are a nightmare the newer ones. Just had a weird one aftermarket pickup with red and black wires which is 8 cyl only, dam pick up itself was a slant one, so you never know. Pretty much run from post 90 items. Barcodes and dot matrix on boxes are post 90 usually Did a lot of threads in the articles on FABO.

Thanks for the share

 

[RJ Squirrel]

Recently, I had the HI-REV ECM and ballast crap out at the same time. I had to tow my car home.

Are you ready for a real weird one? Random NO spark from a MP electronic ignition system despite numerous parts swapped around...

See post 212.

Hey KD, Regarding post 212, I read somewhere that the edges of the fins on the reluctor wheel need to be nice and square, even sharp, not rounded off any. Maybe a damaged reluctor could be causing the erratic signal at high RPM?
I did not read the whole thread so apologies if this has been discussed already.

 

[Kern Dog]

I read that about the edges too. At this point, it doesn’t seem to be misfiring but the tachometer needle bounces as it goes over 4000 rpms.

 

[Geoff 2]

A reluctor doesn't wear because it is not in contact with anything that can cause wear. If by chance the reluctor teeth do make contact with the pole piece, you would soon know about it because you would get no spark on those cyl.

 

[Kern Dog]

Well, maybe.
A worn distributor shaft may allow the reluctor to shimmy and make contact with the pickup and shear edges off the teeth. I've seen it, I actually have a couple distributors in the shed that had this happen.
They still allow the engine to idle. They would probably misfire under load though.
Sometime around 2006, I wanted to run the car down the strip at a car show/drag race/swap meet event. I put in new plugs, checked the timing and brought some 110 leaded gas to use at the strip.
I drove conservatively to the venue, never flooring the gas pedal even once.
Once I got on the track, the car popped and stumbled on WOT. I turned a crappy mid 14 second number when the car should have turned a mid 12.
The same thing happened on the second run.
At home I dove in to see where the problem was. It turns out there were two issues. The air gap in the distributor is supposed to be .008 but it had slipped to .020. Secondly, the spark plugs were gapped too wide. Years before, I'd read that cars equipped with HEI distributors (Chevys) can run better with a wider spark plug gap. I thought I'd try it with a Mopar.
The car ran fine with the larger gaps until wide open throttle where cylinder pressures spiked. The ignition system couldn't respond properly since it was not designed for such a huge gap.
It did run fine at idle and part throttle cruising.

 

[RJ Squirrel]

A reluctor doesn't wear because it is not in contact with anything that can cause wear. If by chance the reluctor teeth do make contact with the pole piece, you would soon know about it because you would get no spark on those cyl.

Yes you are right "worn" was a poor word choice, but you know what I meant. How about "damaged" is that better?

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

Worn would be on all lobes also.