Questions on distributor-less ignitions.

[chrispy]

Questions on distributor-less ignitions.


I am trying to research / learn about the newer offerings for distributor-less ignitions. There does seem to be some offerings from after-market manufactures, but looking at some of the websites (MSD for example). It leaves me even more confused.

Not that I am looking to implement this in my build on paper (well maybe). I am just trying to understand the parts that are offered in the aftermarket realm. Obviously they are all crank based. Some use separate coils for each cylinder. Etc. The basics are in my head, just looking to expand it further. Costs, performance, parts and so on.

Any one know a good resource? Manufactures website or something similar?


Thanks in advance,
Chris

[chrispy]

Afterthought.


Not looking at an "add-on" system like a lot of the current offerings are. Looking for a complete solution.

end of afterthought.

Chris

[Sizzler]

One option...

[chrispy]

Sizzler,

Thanks for the link. Put it in my list.

I just now noticed that the FAST ECU that I am looking at also has an option for their eDist. Are to figure out from the website. Sent an email off to them with some questions.

See what I come up with.

Chris

[cobrashoch]

chrispy- If you do away with the dist. how are you planning on driving the oil pump? The dist. is not the weak link in this chain, the oil pump is. That's why the dist. moves about a bit giving loose timing, wears out dist. gears esp. with roller cams, robs engine power driving the pump, and even other problems such as oil starvation issues.
Nascar guys still run MSD distributors the last I heard, so thats not the weak link. Given costs and options I would much rather focus in on oil control over hot rod ignitions esp. on Cobras, or on any car that gets thrashed about for that matter. For example a dry sump system will cost you about as much as tuning a aftermarket fuel injection system, but the benifits of a dry sump will far and away outweight any benifits you get from ANY ignition system in power gains alone, and that includes fuel injection too, contrary to popular myth. It's your dime,,,,,,,,,,,,,
cobrashock

[chrispy]

Ron,

Thanks for the info. So I need to add a dry sump to my build. LOL

No way.

At the moment I am not thinking about putting it in at all. More or less just curious. Might I put it in at a later date??? Could be. If that is the case, I want to make an easy path if I ever do. Plus I am just curious on the offerings. Does it offer a more reliable system? I think so. Does it offer more HP. From what I have seen, more consistently. Is it worth the cost? Not sure, but at the moment I do not think so.

I might just look at the cost performance between a dry-sump and no disty. Might make a fun comparison. Dry-sump is out for me (cost of course) plus the mess it leaves in the engine compartment (although I am sure that it can be done nicely). With the supercharger I plan room is tight.

NASCAR, I believe is rule mandated to use a distributor. If I am wrong I am sure someone will chime in.

Most of the kits come with the adapter to run the oil pump.

Thanks again,
Chris

[chrispy]

Ron,
Another thought.

We only need to turn to the manufactures. What are they running these days? No disty, or dry sump?

I think the only dry-sump cars are in the supercar class. Saleen S7 is the only one I can think of.

Just thinking out loud.

Chris

[ffindling]

There are several approaches to dealing
with the lack of distributor when going
to distributorless ignition. Stub
drives are available to drive the oil pump
in the absence of a distributor. If you are
using an ECU that supports true sequential operation as opposed to batch
operation, you'll need a camshaft position
sensor output to the ECU. You can modify a distributor to do this or buy one already built. George Anderson (Gessford) has them available. This approach gives you
the needed oil pump drive and
the camshaft position sensor output for
your ECU.

....Fred

[cobrashoch]

Chris - got you thinking right? Most of the stuff you mentioned about dry sumps is old wives tales. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a dry sump system, I run a engine vac. system. But the point is if you are building a engine from scratch you can buy the parts for a sump for just a few more bucks. Point is you have to buy a custom pan anyway, right? oil pump? How about the front of the engine, you have to buy pulleys right? Well the only thing you are missing is a oil reserve tank and some misc. plumbing lines and hardware. The other point is on a new engine you can build the engine to have the smaller low tension rings at the same time, plus you can do some other stiff that conventenal builds can't do. And some of those other things that really do make a big difference, not the hopped up advertised differences' you see in magizines. So you can't just do it later, it don't wash. On your other points - Yes, much more reliable and eliminates all oil problems, cam gear problems, etc. Re; room in supercharged engine bay, stuffs mostly on the bottom and front of the engine, not top. Check my engine choice, been there. Ever think why Nascar requires a dist.? Disty. going the way of the dinasaur because of mag. packs, has nothing to do with cost. Sumps have been on more factory cars than you think. I can think of several high dollar foreign cars that all have them and some of them are not even performance cars. Let's see, how about 75 to 90 more horsepower on a typical 355/383 natural asperated build? Bet you can't get that amount of power, dollar for dollar, with just conventinal hot rod parts - except with a supercharger. (proven, not just advertised) If you investigate this I'd bet you would change your mind at least a bit. --- Not thinking out loud, I've been there ---- your dime,,,,,,,,,,,,
cobrashock

[chrispy]

Fred,

Thanks for the info. As I mentioned before, I was looking at the FAST ECU. Looks like they have a disty-less kit as well. Including the cam locator (guess it just needs to know TDC for #1) and crank trigger.

One thing I forgot to mention. The crazy idea I havein my head (trust me not cheeeeeeezy), might be a problem if the dis is in the way. If so than I have this way to bail out.

Thanks again,
Chris

[chrispy]

Ron,
All good points and thanks again for the informative info.

I am by far any expert in dry-sumps for sure. I did BRIEFLY look into it for this build. Take a look at what intake I am thinking of putting the supercharger to and I have my work cut out. Have you looked at the price of just the pump???? I roughly figured $1200 to go dry sump (I might be far off), and this is not including the custom pan, or the work that needs to be done to the block. I have absolutely no idea what work needs to be done to the block, for this I would rely on someone like KC or the sorts.

Just working out the supercharger mounting (read custom brackets and front end pullies), is a bit of work for me. Adding in the dry-sump adds more of a twist. Understood, that the pump is mounted low. Still I will keep it in mind. At the moment I would like to keep all on one belt, water pump, alt, charger. Not sure if that is "doable" or recommended, something that I will have to sort out. Sure would give a nice clean appearance.

Do plan on running an Accusump for what it is worth. Have one here, and I feel they are well worth it. More so for the startups.


Ron BTW were are the pics?? I have been starting at all of the supercharged Cobras looking for ideas.

Chris

[cobrashoch]

Chris - I'm rotton w/computers so I've never posted pictures. I'm a old fart that doesn't want to learn them either. My car is a drag car so it ain't pretty anyhow, but till a couple of months ago it did run in the low 9's in street trim. Aaaanyhout I'm working on another project car currently, but I plan on getting back to the Cobra soon I hope to get my NHRA sanction card. My tech guy is giving me a hard time about that very subject as I type this message. I want to try some road race stuff next summer with this I car too, so I hope that by then a new rollbar setup will make it NHRA and SCCA legal.

Other - A five stage pump costs about 600$ but sometimes a rebuilt one can be had for 300/400 or so, but you have to look for them. A Stefs pan is about 600$ and the rest can be had for about 6 or 800 dependent on how pretty you want it to look. Stay away from Earls for costs. You can run a 4 stage pump without going into the top of the engine valley tray if you want and you would not loose that much. The key is to look hard at the oil return holes on the block and the heads.
In your case I think you would be happier with a 4 or 5 lbs vacuum pump system I'd bet.
Accusump stuff good, but in my eyes it's not needed if you got the right pan, so you don't need to carry the extra weight or take the chance of oil leaks causing engine failures on road race tracks in hard driving. I use a custom Stefs road race pan that's a Pantera design that sits above my tranny level in the car. On starting up I crank the engine over till I get oil pressure then turn on the ignition switch. I run a front plate and the tranny is a Coan glide that I've adapted as a midplate with the thick adapter plate that Coan uses.
Why do you want to keep everthing on one belt? I'm using two belts, one on the super and the other on the rest of the stuff. That way if I throw a blower belt I can pop the top off of the pressure box and stumble home. I also have most of the pulleys set out past the front plate enough that later if I want too I can just mount stuff on the plate itself, (with bracing of course) by drilling holes and sticking any pulley on the existing belt. About two years ago I did just that with a air conditioner compressor, but I set it low on the engine.
cobrashock

[chrispy]

Ron,

Again thanks for the info. I actually have some time, so maybe keep an eye open on eBay. Seems like good buys on some of the used gear.

I would like to be able to design a single belt system purely for ascetics. Working in the dry-sump would make it more difficult. Even more so seeing that the dry-sumps use a different belt system. (thinking outloud here) I could adapt a pulley. I am sure you will say mount it low and another pulley of the harmonic....just more details to work out.

Heck, one thing I could use is the little extra space if I would gain if I went with the dry. That something I will need to look at during my mock up.

Thanks again,
Chris

[ffindling]

Chris - There isn't much room in the engine bay of these cars so packaging
becomes a BIG issue. A supercharger installation requires a LOT of extra hardware and plumbing in an area where
space is already at a premium. From your
previous post, I take it that you want to
use a belt driven, internally-geared centrifugal supercharger like a ProCharger
or VorTech. While I think it is possible to
do, you will run into clearance issues with
hardware. A custom designed serpentine
system that will drive the supercharger,
the pumps for your dry sump system,
alternator, etc. is doable but it is going
require mocking up in a chassis because of the clearance issues. Some of these
superchargers require oil feed and return
lines, so those have to go into the plan.
Then there is the question of the intercooler. Where to put it? Most
aftermarket systems come with a large
air-to-air intercooler that installs in
front of the radiator. But with Cobras,
cooling is already at a premium and
you want to move as much air as possible through the radiator. With
an intercooler up there, provided you
could make it fit would probably invite
overheating issues. So the best approach would be an air-to-water
system similar to the one used on the
4.6 DOHC supercharged Mod motors.
Those engines use an Eaton supercharger mounted on top and the
intercooler is basically built into the
plenum assembly underneath the
supercharger. For an FE installation
in a Cobra, one approach might be
to fab an airbox with an air-to-water
cooler inside it that would bolt down
over a stack type manifold such as a
TWM, Very Cool Parts, Hillborn, etc.
Pressurized air would feed in through
the front of it, be diverted downwards
through the intercooler and out the
bottom into the stacks. Most likely, the airbox will cause hood clearance issues
that will require modifications like a blister to make the necessary space. The air-to-water system will require
a separate water pump, (another
piece to be incorporated into the serpentine drive system) and its
own heat exchanger. Since we don't
want to obstruct airflow going to the
primary radiator, a custom two-section
radiator would probably be the way
to go. Some frontal area of the radiator
will have to go to the heat exchanger,
so the main core will have to be thicker
to compensate for the lost area and
you'll probably need generate as much
airflow as possible with fans.
It is a VERY ambitious project and is
going to require plenty of engineering,
but it can be done, just expect a
few bumps in the road while bringing it all together.

....Fred

[chrispy]

Fred,

Thanks for the informative post. It might be worth mentioning that the dry-sump is last on my list, and most likely will never happen. Reasons? Cost first, and then the complexity of belting the front end (I also feel that reliability would be an issue too with that many items running off one belt, but could be wrong). Space limitations would be third. Was thinking that I could find a used system off eBay. Problem is the pan. They all seem to be custom, and nobody wants to part with a good used one. If only it were a SBC I was building. Did someone mention that it costs more to build an FE than a SBC?

I have pretty much expelled any supercharger that requires an oil feed. Just because of the extra complexity, and size. I am also thinking that the oil bathed superchargers might limit my positioning.

I was looking at the recent supercharged 4.6L for just the reasons you mentioned. I am starting to think that the crude drawings that I have currently will have to almost hold off until I can actually, at least, get the block into the car (thinking about getting one of those mock-up plastic blocks). I did see some of the water cooled offerings from Vortech. Prices seem absurd. Although I have been thinking about doing some type of water cooler like you mentioned, and just reverse engineer what Vortech, or some other vendor has done. At about $3k for an aftermarket cooler, I can only imagine what "rocket science" is actually involved in these systems. Fail that I will just go without the cooler (putting flame suit on).

To be honest I never understood the need for the cooler. I understand that compression produces heat. So why does this explain coolers on the intake side. Than I look that the Top-fuel and funny cars. What do they run for coolers? Understand different system, but compression is compression.

BTW no hood modifications allowed here. You are correct it will need some engineering to sort out. That is the fun part of the whole ordeal. I just need to make sure that I do not overwhelm myself. Bumps in the road??? Sure there will be some if not many, but when you are staring at that 427, the bumps will seem to flatten out.

Thanks again,
Chris

[ffindling]

Dragsters don't require intercooling for
two reasons: a: They don't use gasoline
for fuel, b: they use an extremely rich
mixture. Alcohol and nitro/alcohol blends
used in such engines are far less prone
to detonation and they dump vast quantities of fuel into the engine which
provides ample cooling of the intake charge. Obviously, the dragster
approach is only practical for dragsters.
As you are aware of, compressing air
puts heat into it (Boyle's Law) and to run
any meaningful amount of boost requires
that the heat (at least a good part of it)
be removed before the air is fed into
the engine's induction system. Even a
modest amount of boost will raise the
temparature of the compressed air considerably over ambient. 5 PSI will
probably raise the temparature 100F
over ambient. Feeding that hot air into
the engine will invite detonation, especially with pump gasolines which
by their nature are detonation prone.
Retarding ignition timing may reduce
detonation, but you could very well
end up with a net loss of power compared to a normally aspirated engine running at full advance. So intercooling is pretty much mandatory
for gasoline engines running at full advance.



....Fred

[chrispy]

Fred,
Thanks for the good advice. All good reading.

In working on this I found the same link as you had above. Very good info.

I do agree that running air too hot off the supercharger and then having to compensate this with timing, could very well result in a negative impact.

I did find the Bell website also has a wealth of info.
http://www.bellintercoolers.com/Page...etail&u_item=5
As well some good parts to start off with. Definitely will be seeing what I can work with there.


Thanks gain,
Chris

[chrispy]

In getting back to the topic that I started with......


I did hear back from the people at FelPro maker of the FAST ECU system. I had sent a somewhat detailed email asking a couple of questions. Well.......

Firstly I did get a reply, than again none would of been better.

Person who replied seemed to know less about their own system than I did. Pretty much ignored a couple of simple questions.

Told me that they do not sell direct so they could not give out price. Confuses me as their website claims they do.

Told me to contact my dealer????? Who is my dealer, website has no info (or at least I could find).

First impressions always sit the deepest with me. With that said .... back off to see if I can find another ECU and integrated spark system (read distributor-less). Anyone have any experiences to share??? Shame as I heard good things from KC about these people. Than again he is KC and I am.........


Chris

[ffindling]

Chris - You might want look at the Electromotive TEC3 engine management
system. It's a highly regarded system albeit somewhat expensive.

Electromotive Inc.

They have a dealer in Dracut, MA which is
probably only an hour away from you.

.....Fred

[chrispy]

Fred,

Yes I almost forgot them. I do think I was a little scared off by their pricing. Their website does seem a lot more informative as well. And holly molly they have a list of dealers.

Gonna read up on this again. Sometimes you get what you pay for?????

Than again, I should send the same email to them as I did to the FAST ECU people. Might be intersting to compare.

Thanks,
Chris