With no solution (or parts to try) in sight for the Samurai's ignition problem, which I have chalked up to the rotor magically turning to wood only when the cap is on, I'm seriously considering getting rid of the awful thing, which would also be a great reliability upgrade. After researching MSD's products and their prices 
I'm now considering transplanting a distributorless ignition system from a car I can get in a scrapyard. Has anyone done anything like this before? I imagine the toughest part would be rigging up the crank sensor. A coil-on-plug system would be more reliable but a twin-coil system would be more convenient, so either will do.
Also are there any issues with doing this setup on a carbed car? I think the only input they need is the tach signal so that should be OK.
TJ
Reader
1/3/09 1:57 p.m.
You might want to take a look at Megajolt. It is relatively cheap compared to most aftermarket ignitions and you will not be stuck with whatever advance curve came with the donor system.
The Megajolt Lite Jr. looks like it can help with what I want, and the site has a handy guide that helps with doing this kind of swap 
http://www.autosportlabs.net/MJLJ_V4_vehicle_installation_guide
One last issue, AFAIK trigger wheels normally need to be on the crank, but is there any way to mount it where the distributor used to be? On an offroad vehicle you try to keep the delicate bits as high up and far back as possible, so being on the crank pulley is barely better than being on the front bumper. I doubt those things will work when submerged in muddy water.
Also are there any sources for EDIS-4 systems I should avoid or go for, or are they all the same?
GameboyRMH wrote:
One last issue, AFAIK trigger wheels normally need to be on the crank, but is there any way to mount it where the distributor used to be? On an offroad vehicle you try to keep the delicate bits as high up and far back as possible, so being on the crank pulley is barely better than being on the front bumper. I doubt those things will work when submerged in muddy water.
Sticking it where the distributor used to be would require cutting some sort of weird 72-1-1 wheel for EDIS, and finding a sensor with a very tiny point unless you were using a very big distributor. GM did this with their four cylinder DIS system, though - trouble is I've only seen the "swap the distributor for a CAS" approach done on the Isuzu Impulse Turbo; the other ones I know of were crank triggered.
Edited to add: That's the only semi-self-contained (as in capable of firing the plugs if disconnected from the ECU) DIS I'm aware of that was not crank triggered. Four cylinder systems that had the ignition control in the ECU and used only a cam-mounted sensor include 1G and 2G DSMs, Mazda Miatas, and a couple Toyota and Nissan engines that I don't think made it to the States in distributorless form. The other self contained DIS systems that I'm familiar with (most GM, Ford EDIS, and Bosch EZK) used crank triggers.
On the other hand, EDIS trigger wheels do work just fine underwater. I've had several customers at work with Land Rovers email me pictures where their headlights were underwater and they were running EDIS. One of them explained he'd put his Megasquirt on the ceiling for this sort of thing.
I believe the only EDIS-4 donor in the US is the '91-'95 Escort / Tracer with the 1.9.
