$19 Junkyard electronic ignition

[mrriggs]

I got my ignition pieced together today. Even remembered to take pictures as I went. I got the pickup and reluctor out of the distributor on an '81 Toyota Corolla. I cross referenced the numbers and it is the same stuff they used on all carbureted Toyota trucks from '78 - '90. In '82 they changed to a round connector on the wires so the part number changed but it is the same pickup. From what I can tell all carbureted Toyota 20R and 22R engines used these same parts.

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First I pulled the pickup off and disassembled the mounting plate. Just pop off the four spring clips and it pops apart (little balls everywhere).

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There is a bearing race on the bottom side.

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Just cut it off and ground it flat.

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Then I ground down the little pins on the original breaker plate.

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With that done everything bolts right in. The center hole in the Toyota plate fits perfectly around the raised portion of the breaker plate so it centers itself. The bolts even catch the ends of the plate perfectly. I still plan to tack weld the two plates together though, just to be safe.

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With that set the pickup drops right in. The wire gromet even fits the the hole in the side.

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Now we just need a reluctor.

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First I hacked off the junk on the bottom.

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Then I pressed the reluctor all the way down on the hub. A 9/16" deep wall socket (as a driver) and a few taps with a hammer moved it quite easily. I had to enlarge the hole in the hub slightly to get it to fit. I just massaged it with a round file until it would slip snuggly over the advance shaft. It really didn't take much. Once it fit over the shaft I ground down the hub until the reluctor teeth were in far enough to line up with the pickup.

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Then I cut off the rest of the hub on the other side of the reluctor.

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All that's left then is to grind off two of the teeth and bolt it on.

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To time it I put the crank on the full advance mark then held the advance weights out, turned the reluctor until one of the teeth lined up perfectly with the pickup, then tightend the nut. I will go back and add a notch on the back for the pin in the shaft to slip in so it can't possibly turn. It's good enough for preliminary testing now. I grabbed a 4-pin HEI module, Chevy dual output coil, and RC car battery and just slopped it together to see if it would work. More details on that later. I pulled off the advance weights and turned the advance shaft by hand. I got Megga fire from the coil, SWEET! Put the weights back in, hopped on board and gave it a kick; Boom... putter.... putter. Few more kicks it fired and sounded like it was only running on one cylinder. Looked down to see I had forgotten to hook up one of the spark plug leads, Duh! I hooked it up but by then the motor was too flooded to start. Dang, and I'm out of time for today so that's where it sits now.

[tomterrific]

This is very cool. I have pictures of a GM coil driven with an HEI 4 terminal ignitor sparking between the posts! The part about not hooking up one plug wire is confusing since that should have killed the spark. The secondary isn't grounded in that coil it just goes through one plug and out the other. I think the coil is so powerful that the spark must have gone directly to the block. That is the only way the plug could get fire. Shows how strong the GM coil is.

Tom Graham

[mrriggs]

I think the coil is so powerful that the spark must have gone directly to the block. That is the only way the plug could get fire. Shows how strong the GM coil is.

That's exactly what happened. I pulled the right plug wire off to put the cover back on the advance mechanism. The plug wire was sitting on the case right next to the cylinder, so the spark jumped down the boot to the engine case traveled to the other other spark plug jumped the gap and went back to the coil. All that with a 9.6 volt battery!

[bighairyralph]

I can not express how interested I am in this ignition. If there were a Toyota parked on my street I'd be pulling the distributor out right now!

[tomterrific]

I have heard that breaker points can trigger the EI module. I have not tried this myself but it is intrigueing. With the electronics handling the current the points should last a very long time. I build two CDI units for points back in the 70s.

Tom

[mrriggs]

If you want to trigger it with points then I would suggest a Ford TFI module. It has the best dwell control I've seen in a factory unit and clamps the current at 7 amps. You want the gray module, not the black one.

I was originally planning to use a TFI module triggered by points. I've done it on old cars. You will never burn points again but you will still need to adjust them periodically.

[motolou]

hey mrriggs, could you please tell us which car you got the ignitor module from? how 'bout the chevy dual output coil? can I use the ignitor module from the corolla, this model had the module bolted to the coil itself? I think it was from an '83.

[mrriggs]

I already had the 4-pin HEI module. Bought it years ago when I started playing with ignitions. Just went to my favorite parts store and asked for a "4-pin HEI module". Of course, this only works if the store is run by people who actually know what a car is. If you ask for that in most places these days the "associate's" eyes will glaze over and they will follow up with, "Uh, what year is that..." If you must suffer through it then tell them it's for a '78 Camaro with a 350. I recommend you stay away from the Parts Master module #LX-301. All the failures I have seen and heard about were due to the Parts Master module. If you want to find one in a junkyard look for this-

-inside the distributors of GM cars.

I think I got the coil from a 90's Cavalier. I didn't even look since just about every distributorless GM car out there had the same coils. On most cars they are mounted way down on the engine block. I walked down the row until I found a car that was disassembled enough that I could easily reach the coils. I grabbed the entire coil pack, two coils on a four cylinder, that way I would have a spare. The coils have a funny connector on the mounting face, I haven't found a good way to hook them up or mount them yet.

You can use pretty much any module you want but not all modules are equal. I know the early Ford and Chrysler electronic ignitions used a magnetic pickup but they are a big, crude setup with poor dwell control and didn't have the current clamping capabilities of the HEI. Which is why they still used a ballast resistor.

When crossbreeding magnetic pickup ignitions the only trick is to get the pickup wired correctly. If the pickup wires are backwards then the ignition will fire before the reluctor tooth reaches the center pole of the pickup. This is bad because there is no way to static time the motor, so you will likely never get it started, and the firing position will change with speed, so you can't keep the motor in time. To check if you have it wired correctly hook up a timing light and shine it in the pickup assembly when it's spinning. If a reluctor tooth appears lined up with the center pole of the pickup then you have it right. If it is turned so the tooth isn't even close to the pole then swap the wires around. This trick works for any magnetic pickup as long as the module doesn't advance the timing.

These motors make it super easy to test, just pop off the advance weights and you can spin the shaft without having to spin the motor. I put a 10mm socket on an extension then chucked it up in a drill. Used that to spin the advance shaft while I watched it with a timing light.

[motolou]

thanks mrriggs, now that you put everything in black and white as far as hardware and where to get it, the last question I have is: what wire goes where from the hei module, it has four pins. I see (w)hite, (g)reen, (b)lack, and (o)range on the module? I apologize for pickin your brain but I don't know much about electrical! I apreciate your patience.

[mrriggs]

You are half right, the markings are actually (W)hite, (G)reen, (B)attery, and (C)oil. Battery and coil are fairly self explanatory. The negative lead of the coil goes to the C pin. The B pin gets hooked to the same voltage source as the possitive coil lead. The pickup hooks to the W and G pins. With the Toyota pickup the white wire goes to W and the orange wire to G. Don't forget ground, very important! The module grounds through the mounting screws. You need to bolt it securely to a grounded plate or have a ground wire run to one of the screws. Another factor is heat, what it is mounted to needs to act like a heat sink. I plan to mount mine to an aluminum plate under the seat. If you don't have a cool, flat metal surface to bolt it to then you can bolt it to an actual heat sink. On my test setup now I'm using a heat sink from a slot type computer proccessor. I've used this same setup on cars and haven't had any troubles.

[motolou]

thank you very much mrriggs, I will stop at my local junk yard tomorrow after work and pick up the module and coil. I'll slap it together this week in my spare time and cross my fingers. just one question though, where the heck you folks pick up all these ideas?! ha, ha, ha. by the way my chopper is the blue one with the rear white wall and white seat in the members rides section. can't wait be able to ride it full time again!! thanks

[burge]

You are talking about the GM hei ? 3M did a test on one for his RR the things draw 7 amps the big red wire going to it is a clue the xs might drive it if you dont trun on the headlite
Dwayne

[mrriggs]

...the things draw 7 amps the big red wire going to it is a clue the xs might drive it if you dont trun on the headlite

They do have a high peak current (that's why they work well) but the duty cycle is low. At 1500 rpm the coil may be charging for 6 milliseconds and half of that time is ramping up to peak current, but it only fires every 40 milliseconds. So the average current draw is under an amp. The duty cycle will increase with rpm but even at redline your average current draw is less than 2 amps.

[mrriggs]

I figured out how to effectively wire and mount the coil. The coils are designed to bolt right to the ignition module. When I grabbed the coil pack I got the module with it. Below is a pic of the module with one coil removed.

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I popped off the other coil and pried off the cover.

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Then I flipped it over and pried off the circuit board.

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I pulled out an ohm meter and traced the leads. One of the coil leads was already hooked to one of the plugs (blue arrows). I traced the other plug lead (green) and coil lead (red). I only need one coil so I cut off the rest of the module.

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I soldered in a jumper wire so the coil is connected directly to the plug.

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I'll cover all the exposed traces with paint-on electrical tape. With this adapter plug the coil will mount easily where the old coils used to be. Plus all the connections will be secure and water tight. When I grabbed the module I cut the wires off instead of unplugging them so I have the pigtail to plug it in. I'll post some pics of the final install when I get the bracket made.

[motolou]

hey mrriggs, I have been fiddlin with this for a couple of afternoons and I just came up with this crazy idea. I bought one of those clear dist. caps and rotor off a vw bug and am in the process of intalling it. I have already installed the rotor and the shaft onto the hub, I just have to make a mounting plate for the dist. cap. by the way, I went to put the pick up coil on the backing plate and found that you can bolt it directly to the points plate, you do have to make one extra hole though, no biggy. I think my dist. set up will look trick on my bike with one chromed single coil mounted to the back bone. i'll keep you guys updated as I go.