VTC_CiViC

Yes it's long, but it's easily the scarriest experience with my motor yet. I'm out with a friend giving him a ride in the Civic since he hadn't been in it for the longest time, so I head to a local street by my house, wide enough for me to get on it a little. Now up to this point, I have yet to really get on it hard from a dead stop with the Hondata. I'd become familiar to how it'd pull before, but now it's a different animal altogether.. anyways we're there at the light, i'm ready to go, light turns green and I get off easy, then I just ease into the throttle and nail it...... I kid you not, within the blink of an eye the wheels just completley broke loose and I was greeted with the sound of a feaking shotgun blast :BAAAANNGGG!!:

At this point, me and Serge just look at each other like "oh... damn...." The car is driving funny so I just limp it home and into the garage honestly expecting to have blown at least 1 cylinder to hell. Well I notice the car is idling fine now, we look out back, no smoke. Open then hood, all looks good here, hmmm. I check the AVC-R's peak numbers to see if by chance I hit the limiter, and I nearly died! AVC-R showed a max rpm of 7482 rpm! Doesn't sound like alot to you? Remember, this is true rpm as told by the AVC-R, my indicated rpm according to the tach shot to 7900 rpm, and with a full 10psi of boost banging the limiter!!!!!!!

So, expecting the worst, we pulled the plugs out one by one. All four showed the same.. very black electrodes (looked like somebody just dumped a gallon of fuel in there since I checked them the night before and they were still off-white), but no sign of damage. Checked the compression, everything was 100%. Well needless to say this was a HUGE sigh of relif, but something was still wrong because the car wouldn't want to drive at all past 3500 rpm or in boost. It would just cut off completley, and die, and then it wouldn't start for like 15 mins. Eventually we realized it was getting no spark at all. Tried playing with the wires, got it to start, but same result, died in a few moments. Finally I disconnected the MSD, started it back up, drove it in and out of boost.. no problem!

Oh well, I learned my lesson, no more hard launches on P185 Firestones, and I set the AVC-R to -10% start duty for 1st gear (from +2%) lol, I got lucky once, I'm not chancing that again!!! BTW, anybody esle had an MSD crap out on them like that?

Cliffs: nearly blew my motor.. fortunatley, my MSD let go instead!

rtype11

I had my MSD HVC coil kinda crap out on me , the polarized connector loosened and the car died, that was ofcourse the last part I diagnosed, after I found that to be the problem I just hard wired it. what coil are you using with what box?
you cant use a HVC with a 6/al or lower only 7Al and up that could lead to frying you box.

revhrdls

When you say that the MSD crapped out on you what components are you specifically referring to? the box? the coil? cap? I have the same problem as we speak and I think it's the ******* box or the coil but not sure....
David

VTC_CiViC

The only MSD component i'm running is a 6A box, no coil. Checked the wiring to the distributor thinking maybe one came loose.. no dice. So I just removed it altogether and wired it back to stock, runs like a champ.

Anybody know how to go about repairing MSD's?

RGAZ

I have heard of MSD's failing in the past. Mostly due to vibration. The components in the box break their solder joints and then fail. I heard you can send it back to MSD for repair pretty cheap. They stand by their product. You could try repairing it your self, but i'd just have them do it.

Randy

Speed PHreak

My MSD crapped out on me. I think becuase of my hybrid and the vibrations it may have crapped out. Sometimes it would just cut spark in and out when I got on it hard. It would jerk the car hard enough to make my neck hurt, this is of course @ 10lbs of boost too.....

SIK IN DA HED

my MSD crapped out on me like that on my first car. it was only a year old, too. MSD has good customer service on their units. sometimes they replace it... most of the time, they just repair it for a small fee, if not free.

SiRkid

guy neatr me, his msd crapped out. all this talk about them goin g makes me NOT want to buy one.even though i love the soft touch limiter

slowcivic

The exact same thing happened to me driving home after my Turbo install. I geared down from 4th to 3rd ( was about at 4.5k rpm ) then started accelleratiing again then BAAAAAAM! I look out the rear view only to see lots of BLACK smoke. I coasted to a halt. My wife was driving behind me and saw a large ball of flame come out the exhaust pipe then the black smoke. Needless to say I had the **** scared out of me. Tried to start the car, but would not turn over due to no spark. Turns out I had to replace my MSD 7AL-2 Unit and HVC Coil. I had both components for 4yrs.

BHSCGSR

I have had no problems at all with mine.......6A 10 yrs old. It was in my motorhome 2yrs - pulled it and put it in my civic 5yrs - pulled it and put it in my GSR 3yrs and still working.......

10 yrs, 3 cars and still working......

Smurfylude

I'm running the HVC with 6AL for 2 years and I have no problems.....

The_Head

I've had mine for over 6 months, no problems at all. I have the box mounted in the car, not in the engine bay

like this:

http://www.theoldone.com/sc/type-r/ignition.jpg

got the idea back in the day when I thought ENDYN was cool

rondigs

I've had trouble with their 8.5mm wires.
All of the sudden-cylinders are doing their own thing. Lots of misfiring. Lots of limping. Thankfully it was just plug wires, That type of $hi+ is scary...

DRAGLS

they make a hvc for the six series. get the facts straight.

M.A.R.C.

scary man. thank God everything's ok.

csufweed

i had mine for 2 years, no problems with the MSD 6A or the blaster coil to my knowledge. Only problem is with the wires! And I dont know if its related or not, my distributor rotor went out and caused major misfiring! but since, I've had no problems.