Thread: How Do You Like Your Msd Ignition??

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I am going aginst the crowd here. I have the 6AL on the 392 Hemi, and as a driver, I see no advantage. I think they were made for racing, and does nothing to help starting or normal driving. I also had same set up on my 81 Mirada (360/380) crate motor, again no major performance advantage as a street car.

Jack

Had a mallory unilite coil on a 350 that caused a fire once due to poor coil wire retention design. Replaced my 68 Vet transistor ignition with MSD billet distributor and 6AL box and the difference was mind boggling to say the least. Especially noticed it on cold starts, warm up, and lugging around town. Missed a gear once and the rev limiter works great!

I bought a MSD 6AL and billet distributor for the 502 also, someday I'll even light it up maybe

Kitz

Don -

I have had a MSD 6200 (aka 6A) on my 57 Oldsmobile since 1994 and it has never skipped a beat. Mine has been absolutely reliable and with the addition of a Pertronix electronic distributor conversion kit added in 1999, it has been hazzle free. The pertronix kit was added to the original (1957) distributor.

moparjack is correct, there is no advantage to running an msd box on a mild build street motor, the only advantage is the built in rev limiter

Originally Posted by mooneye777

moparjack is correct, there is no advantage to running an msd box on a mild build street motor, the only advantage is the built in rev limiter

I guess it really depends on what you call a "mild build".

I wouldn't run a 6AL on either of my cars, neither of which are mild or wild builds. My opinion is that the 6AL is overkill for a strickly street machine, but the 6A is a good match.

I don't have one on my 34, because I really have no place to mount the thing. No space under the hood where weather wouldn't be a factor and no space under the dash. Guess I could mount it under the rear seat. Nah.

There is also a MSD 5 for those who have stock engines with no race ambitions. In some cases an MSD ignition is like Billet, you really don't need it, but to keep up with the "Joneses", you just gotta to have it.

Originally Posted by mopar34

I wouldn't run a 6AL on either of my cars, neither of which are mild or wild builds. My opinion is that the 6AL is overkill for a strickly street machine, but the 6A is a good match.

I don't have one on my 34, because I really have no place to mount the thing. No space under the hood where weather wouldn't be a factor and no space under the dash. Guess I could mount it under the rear seat. Nah.

There is also a MSD 5 for those who have stock engines with no race ambitions. In some cases an MSD ignition is like Billet, you really don't need it, but to keep up with the "Joneses", you just gotta to have it.

You do know the only difference is the 6A does not come with a rev. limiter and the 6AL does.
Why don't you want to run a rev. limiter??

well the msd s do work good on mild street stuff much better then points. but on stock stuff that has a hei maybe not

I got my 6 BTM, I'm going to have it fire the DSII distributor I got, I also bought the $15 MSD- Duraspark harness, so it's plug and play. a 6 AL just has a rev limiter, over a stock 6 box, a 6 M box, is for a marine application, and will work good on vehicles where weather may be a problem. Running a MSD with points, is an improvement, but in some cases, triggering a 4 pin GM HEI modual with the points, will work just as good ( cuts out points bounce signal ).

i personally noticed when addiding my 6al i was able to lean my mixture out a bit and i gained a tiny bit more power.... nothing drastic but it was noticeable

thing about the MSD boxes is if you got a 6cyl or less and you don't cut the wires they will multi spark forever, which I don't think is good for the coil

depends on what kind of ignition you have it on matt... my buddy put one on his 4cyl nissan pickup, and since its got an internal coil on the distributor, the way the MSD box hooks up, it completely bypasses the coil

rev limiter whats that?

That's what you use instead of worn out valve springs that float at 6500 RPM!!!!!!!

i always thought the rev limiter was the name of that noise rods make when they hit the oil pan