Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

Ignition Setup:

• NGK plug wires
• OEM distributor (internal icm + ignition removed)
• NEW MSD cap & rotor
• NEW Mallory 6852M HyFire 6A box
• NEW Crane PS92N Race External Core Coil
• Senditracing ICM bypass box

History:

• New engine/ignition/fuel setup for 4 weeks.
• 4hrs on the dyno
• 20hrs of regular driving (700 highway 300 city)
• 12 full 1/4 mile passes
• 3 hours total of HPDE road course

Issue:

This past week I the ignition cut out while on a drag pass (3rd gear 8500rpms).
I thought it was charge blowing off, I shift into 4th for a few secs, then into 5th as the car coasted in vacuum.
By the end of the track (going 20mph) I shift neutral, the rpms slowly drop to 0 & engine shuts off, battery light stays on & can't restart it.

In the pits, I try to trouble shoot it.

• Got fuel
• No CEL
• ECU working
• battery still plenty of juice
• engine cranks & turns over smoothly
• plugs look good
• engine has compression
• all fuses look good
• NO spark

I run to store to by MSD coil to swap with Crane coil. Still no spark. We trailer it home.
3 days go by before I find time to trouble shoot it.

I charge the battery with my trickle charge 12v.
Instantly, the RED light on the mallory box comes on (key is not in ignition) for 10sec then shuts off.
30 seconds later the Mallory box starts buzzing & getting hot.
I disconnect the trickle charge & buzzing noise goes away.



Question:

1) how the heck would the mallory box go bad already?
2) see picture of how it's mounted, is this a grounding issue (box touching plate, plate bolt to chassis) .....?
3) anyone with a summit or mallory box care to post pic of how they have their box mounted?



I need to figure this out so I can make it to a few more events before MN season ends. lol






Thanks FI members

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

can't answer how it goes "bad already".. Did you go through Summit Racing? Give them a call. How long ago did you get it.?

Turbo-LS? check out his installation diagram.. I'm not noticing anything strange at first glance.. second opinion?

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

He contacted me about it already. Unfortunately I'm away on vacation so can't give him any specs on the bypass but I had a weird issue with charger on ky car when at the dyno and it did sown weird stuff with my s300. Also when I first did this setup my first summit box was bad it kept breaking up and misfiring. Thought it was my icm bypass built a new one and didn't fix it. Ended up getting a replacement box from summit

That being said the weird behavior of the Mallory makes me think it's that. My summit box is mounted on two metal brackets with the provided rubber mounts. I have my power and ground directly to the battery and 1/v switch to the black and yellow wire that the icm bypass box is powered from.

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

I ordered mallory from amazon... I will email mallory tech support if they know why the box would be buzzing and heating up. Maybe something inside the box is wrong. Hopefully they have some way for me to test it or have me ship it to them to inspect.

In the meantime I'm going to get the metal bracket powder coated wrinkle black (lol)
Also going to find some hard plastic tall washers (10mm) so that the box won't have to sit flush with the plate.

I also have power and ground wire for mallory box going direct to the battery terminals.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Now, I didn't do that.. I doubt it matters, but.. interesting.

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

curious how did you run your power & ground wired for the summit box?

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Do you have a fuse on the power wire from the battery? Sometimes the amperage the battery produces will fry boxes, especially without a fuse. You have no idea what kind of current the box is drawing given it's power source and it could pull enough current (without a fuse) to kill the box

My suggestion is simply to call Mallory and talk to a tech and see what they say

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

I see what your saying but wouldnt that only imply about the alternator amp changing due to rpms?

Cause wouldnt the battery always produce 12v or less and not more created simply due to rpms creating more amps? Not sure if I am making any sense. Lol

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

I'll check tomorrow at the lab. Been so long since it was hooked up, that i can't remember off-hand.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

A battery has amperage all the time. How do you think it cold cranks a starter motor? Some batteries produce upwards of 1000 cold cranking amps. That's 12,000 watts at 12vdc and 14,700 watts at 14.7vdc to put it into a common value. That's a shitload of 100w lightbulbs lol. That's enough to spot weld 2 1" pieces of solid steel together in a matter of seconds, or enough amperage to power a typical 2 story 4 bedroom home, or enough amperage to run every execution electric chair in the country at once (see what I'm getting at lol?)
I'm implying that amperage, not voltage damaged the unit. Hence my fuse comment. Voltage won't pop a fuse, only amperage.

I'd put a multimeter on the wires to the box with the charger on it/ignition on and see what amperage it's drawing when it's buzzing

When the alternator charges the battery voltage can rise as high as 18 volts unregulated, however voltage regulating circuitry within the alternator itself limits this voltage to roughly 14.7-15vdc. A range the box would have no problem operating in, assuming amperage wasn't through the roof. Does the Mallory unit have an internal fuse or circuit breaker? I would assume with todays modern electronic circuitry technology that it would have not only polarity protection but some sort of voltage/amperage protection circuit that would shut the box down if volts/amps exceeded a preset value

I would still call Mallory and get their best tech on the phone

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

Hooking it directly to the battery isn't going to hurt the ignition box. It's the bed source for connection of power. The box will only draw the amperage it requires a battery doesn't force amperage out. Regardless if he was running a fuse or not. Running an inline fuse is to protect the rest of the circuit ie your vehicles electrical system not the actual device it self. If the device draws 10 amps but short circuits internally which would draw a much larger amount of amperage at that point the 10amp fuse will pop so not to overload the wiring which would cause melting and possibly a fire once the protective coating on the wiring melts.

That being said an inline fuse should be ran to protect your vehicle. The fuse should be inline as close to the device as possible.

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

sent email to mallory... we'll see what they say.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

I wasn't saying the battery will force current into the box

I was saying that without current limiting protection that if the box were to fail it could technically draw as much amperage as the battery could supply

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

Update:

Since Rick @ Mallory didn't email me back, I decide to call Prestolite Performance (owns a mallory, mr.gasket, and like 20 other brands).

The other was somewhat helpful... not really...
I offered to send him pictures of how i wired it up & how it's mounted. He said it doesn't "matter" cause it was running already.

He said the Crane coil is what may have fried the Mallory box.
He googles specs of Crane PS92N and says it's too low. (WTF?)

Crane PS92N
#730-0192
primary .20 ohm
secondary .82k ohms
60:1 to turn ratio
http://www.cranecams.com/414-415.pdf

Mallory #29440
primary .60 ohms
secondary 12.3k ohm
105:1 turn ratio
http://prestoliteperformance.com/med...6853M_0001.pdf


He says the Crane coil doesn't put out enough power.
He goes on to reccomend a Mallory #29440 & that Mallory does have 1year replacement warranty & that I should contact Amazon.


... After the call I notice the Mallory coil #29440 is only for 6000-8000rpms use.
So that won't work for my application. lol





Thoughts?
Is he full of it, or have a point about the Crane coil not being strong enough?










Thanks

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

The lower resistance of the coil could cause excess current draw from the box

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

aren't these boxes (speaking broadly) designed to work with any aftermarket coil including OEM coils?


So how would one prevent essesive coil "drawing" from discharge box?

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

Lol idk I use the summit box which is made by Mallory with crane ps92 coil for years no issues. Sound like box just **** the bed

Tony the Tiger

I ran mine with the 10000RPM E-series coil:
http://mallory-ignition.com/ignition...coil-2351.html

It ran well for 3 years no problem, but the box doesn't like cold Canadian winters and had some hiccups until it warmed up... I ended up going back to stock ignition for now with all new OEM parts .

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

Tony, I'll look into that coil to see if I can compare it with the crane one i'm using. Not sure if there willl be much of a difference.


I delt with amazon since they were a lot faster at answering providing options & solutions. They provided me return lable & overnighted me a new box.

I also followed up with mallory tech Rick.

I confirmed with Rick that having the box casing touching ground/chassis will not affect the circuit board inside. He did reccomend some rubber gromments as feet on the board to reduce vibration to the box. I wonder why they don't proivde tall rubber washers. hum...


Initally he wanted me to pay for shipping to return & pay $75 to service it.
After I pushed back regarding their 1yr warranty he approved to have it serviced for free as long as I paid for shipping. I told him that if my next box has issues I will return it directly to them.


So I installed the new box last Thursday & everything went smoothly. Started right up. Took the wife out on midnight cruise to watch some racing & took it to car show this weekend. No issues.


This time around I did a few things differently:

1) (4) 3/4" round rubber washer on all corners mounting corners of box.
2) ground for box is grounded to chassis (vs. direct to battery negative terminal)

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

This is very good that you made these calls. Very few people nowadays are his proactive.
BTW I checked my ignition box setup. It was ground to the chassis and positive was on the battery. I remember we made a plate for both the box and MSD coil with rubber feet on the coil itself. I'll see if I can get a picture

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

Glad it all worked out. I figured it was the box. Some times things just go bad.

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

I also did place 1/4" tall washers under the mounting bracket of the "plate" as well just to reduce vibration.



The real test will be on October 12.
I'm heading down to Cedar Falls, IA for the Midway Shootout with MAP.
I think the box doesn't take kindly vibration & hard lanches. I road course it for six 20min sessions with no issues but after about 11 drag race passes (8 of them horrible bog launches & only 3 hard solid lauches)....the box craps out on the 11th run top of 3rd.

I don't believe in random failures.
I'll continue to be mindful of vibrations & look in ways to reduce vibration.
Hopefully this helps future guys out too.

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

Only true way to reduce all vibration is to wrap it in bubble wrap lol

One time one of the Speed Channel Techs setting up remote cameras on superbikes at an AMA race gave us some of the vibration absorbing foam the use between the camera body and the bike. It took all the vibration out of cameras doing 200+ miles an hour bouncing around and even made the crashes look better lol. I'll try and see if I can remember what it's called because it works on everything

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

My summit box seems to be holding up just fine with vibration. I've had plenty of very hard launches and years of street driving in the same box. When I first did this upgrade the first summit box I received had random breakup for no reason. Summit swapped it out and was perfect since then

Charlie Moua

iTrader: (3)

One of my local buddies had a mallory box last year & didn't have any issues at all he was runing 10's in his boosted D.

I hope i just had a bad box and the new one last longer.... Nothing is perfect, all we can do is try to make it better.




please do sir. I'd love to try it out.
it's just about piece of mind.