Having mounted the trigger wheel and sensor on my modified pinto I was about to start chopping out the wiring to the original electronic distributor based ignition when I paused.
I could:
Remove the electronic dizzy, leads, spark module, single coil and it's associated LT wiring, sell them on Ebay and then install simple point to point wiring for the Megajolt (Plus fit a cut down dizzy to run the pinto's oil pump) Or
Remove the dizzy, leads and single coil, leave the module and tuck the LT wiring out of the way. Or
Keep the original ignition installation intact with the HT leads from the dizzy tied up out of harms way so that the car can be reverted to standard ignition immediately just by swapping the leads and flicking a changeover switch.
I have already mounted the coilpack on a bracket on the back of the cylinder head so there's no need for me to fit this where the distributor would normally go.
It therefore wont make any difference to the amount of work and hardly any measureable weight difference to go for the full parallel ignition system failsafe.
My only hesitation is that I have not seen many others doing this and wonder if there is a reason why ?
What is the consensus on this please ?
retain original ignition as a fallback ?
Moderators: JeffC, rdoherty, stieg, brentp
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Not Anumber
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:47 pm
- Location: Southend on Sea. UK
HI
My tuppence worth!
I run MJ on a 53 year old Land Rover. Runs beautifully and so far never let me down despite several thousand miles and some very deep water crossings. Now, as you might imagine I get to some pretty remote places both in the UK and abroad (yes it really does get used!!) and these are the sorts of places that only a 4WD can go - no Big Yellow Taxis to drag me out. So, I left the original dizzy in place (similar issue re oil pump drive as the Pinto anyway), removed the rotor arm and leads (put rubber cups over the lead holes) and keep them in the Landy (along with some spares for the MJ - in fact the only spare I don't have is the MJ itself - too expensive!). A simple swap over of one wire, fitting the rotor arm and the leads and I would be on my way.
Now if I had MJ fitted to a road car (used to run Weber Alpha on a Caterham - with dizzy removed) then I am not sure I would worry too much. If it breaks (unlikely?) then the breakdown people will bring you home. I had some friends with MJ on their 7s at the time and they, like me did not have a 'back up' plan!
Difficult one. Weight saving - minimal. Sale value of the old parts....probably minimal on Fleabay?
Dizzy isn't in the way...so just leave it and carry the leads/rotor...just in case?
HTH
Dave
My tuppence worth!
I run MJ on a 53 year old Land Rover. Runs beautifully and so far never let me down despite several thousand miles and some very deep water crossings. Now, as you might imagine I get to some pretty remote places both in the UK and abroad (yes it really does get used!!) and these are the sorts of places that only a 4WD can go - no Big Yellow Taxis to drag me out. So, I left the original dizzy in place (similar issue re oil pump drive as the Pinto anyway), removed the rotor arm and leads (put rubber cups over the lead holes) and keep them in the Landy (along with some spares for the MJ - in fact the only spare I don't have is the MJ itself - too expensive!). A simple swap over of one wire, fitting the rotor arm and the leads and I would be on my way.
Now if I had MJ fitted to a road car (used to run Weber Alpha on a Caterham - with dizzy removed) then I am not sure I would worry too much. If it breaks (unlikely?) then the breakdown people will bring you home. I had some friends with MJ on their 7s at the time and they, like me did not have a 'back up' plan!
Difficult one. Weight saving - minimal. Sale value of the old parts....probably minimal on Fleabay?
Dizzy isn't in the way...so just leave it and carry the leads/rotor...just in case?
HTH
Dave
We've supplied Megajolt systems to many people doing long duration, unsupported expeditions. For their first event they typically want a spares package plus they leave the original ignition set up so it can be swapped in if need be. Come their second event the dizzy etc has almost always been binned. By the third trip the Megajolt/EDIS spares pack has found itself installed on a second vehicle and the sapce in the spares kit freed up to make room for the myriad of things that they do find fail - extra fuel pumps, ball joints, drive shafts etc. I think that speaks volumes for the reliability of the system.
Our experience is that whilst people find it reasurring to have the ability to revert the reality is once you have the Megajolt on there you never will.
Our experience is that whilst people find it reasurring to have the ability to revert the reality is once you have the Megajolt on there you never will.
Official Megajolt distributor for UK and Europe.
Complete Megajolt packages, EDIS kits, Trigger wheels and everything else you need for your megajolt install
www.trigger-wheels.com
Complete Megajolt packages, EDIS kits, Trigger wheels and everything else you need for your megajolt install
www.trigger-wheels.com
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Not Anumber
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:47 pm
- Location: Southend on Sea. UK
That certainly convinced me. Done away with.
Removing the old ignition system allowed a neater and simpler point to point wiring regime. As the installation is in a 7 type kit car that was built by someone else I was facing having to fathom the loom wiring with multiple lucar and bullet connectors and varying wire colours in conjuction with the correct variant of the Ford donor car's wiring diagram. Instead a multimeter and the Mjlj wiring diagram told me all i needed to know.
It started 1st time on the Edis when testing and is now running well on the Megajolt with a default map. Already it is driving far better than with the old distributor based setup.
I will hook up the notebook computer this evening to start the process of trying different maps and for accuracy will check the trigger wheel/ sensor alignment with a trotractor and strong light to see if any offset is required.
Very impressed with the Mjlj so far and with the great backup and support from Autolsprt Labs on this forum. I will write up the installation and my findings in the Gallery section.
Removing the old ignition system allowed a neater and simpler point to point wiring regime. As the installation is in a 7 type kit car that was built by someone else I was facing having to fathom the loom wiring with multiple lucar and bullet connectors and varying wire colours in conjuction with the correct variant of the Ford donor car's wiring diagram. Instead a multimeter and the Mjlj wiring diagram told me all i needed to know.
It started 1st time on the Edis when testing and is now running well on the Megajolt with a default map. Already it is driving far better than with the old distributor based setup.
I will hook up the notebook computer this evening to start the process of trying different maps and for accuracy will check the trigger wheel/ sensor alignment with a trotractor and strong light to see if any offset is required.
Very impressed with the Mjlj so far and with the great backup and support from Autolsprt Labs on this forum. I will write up the installation and my findings in the Gallery section.