Improved mileage?- ignition system

McCall Pinz · Post by **McCall Pinz** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 10:21 am

I've been wondering about a taller gear in the hi/lo box for the street as well, but don't know where to look for one, so I didn't want to hi-jack that thread. I tuned the carbs and timed the ignition per Jake's earlier posts- 28 degrees if I remember right- and that helped. I'm not totally accurate, but using the GPS and working backwards it seems like I'm getting about 15 mpg when driving on-road. Offroad is anybody's guess.
Now, I'm thinking of a CD ignition. Capactive Discharge ignitions output multiple sparks to get a better fuel burn. This should provide a little better power and maybe better mpg. There was a diagram on Juergen's site and they used to be pretty popular on aircooled vw's, but I haven't been in that world for about 15 years. Also, CB Performance has some hi-performance, low-resistance rotors and caps for the 009 that should work in the civi/pertronix set-up
Is anyone running a CD ignition or has advice?

MASSIVE PINZ · Post by **MASSIVE PINZ** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:30 pm

I had good luck with a modified Mallory Unilite and Hyfire CD system.. It was hard to set up and I had planned on selling them/ using them as part of the FI kit... I could not find an adequate number of the 24V modules to make them work, as the downfall..

Thats why I went direct fire with the FI kit and did away with the dizzy completely..

McCall Pinz · Post by **McCall Pinz** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:15 pm

Thanks Jake, I was hoping you would throw in some info on this. Crank fired would sure simplify things in a lot of ways. Are you still using a Hyfire unit with the FI kit? Finding a 24v CD unit is going to be tough (I haven't looked at the Hyfire yet) so I was thinking of a resistor to take it down to 12-18v since that is the range most of them work within. Did you see any performance or mpg gains? I remember from VWs it wasn't huge, but did help both.

MASSIVE PINZ · Post by **MASSIVE PINZ** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:34 pm

I ran the hyfire from just one battery and netted 12V to it, no worries...

I ended up using the direct fire arrangement because it was actually cheaper and easier than a dizzy..

Gains in ignition didn't get me much... With the CR of the Pinz advance settings proved to be more beneficial than the ignition components..

Jim LaGuardia · Post by **Jim LaGuardia** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:46 pm

My system also runs direct fire, but for sequential injection also uses a sync sensor

Injection is nice, costly, but nice

MASSIVE PINZ · Post by **MASSIVE PINZ** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:35 am

The SDS based system uses 3 magnets, easily drilled into the crank pulley, two for trigger and one for sync... Batch fire has proven to give us the best driveability and coolest running temps in most every application I have compared them with.

When using systems like Motec, or Autronic that have batch fire, or sequential injector triggering we typically stay batch fire... Most new cars that have sequential injection will operate in batch fire mode at lower speeds. The Porsche Boxster and 996/997 engines that we are working with now do this with their factory Motronic ECUs..

Engine modification and advancement isn't suppose to be cheap...