I agree with fellro86 & RW. While Bill may be onto something re the shutter, it would seem very unusual to have a problem with one cylinder on an electronic dizzy.

 

Issue found. I found an online thread. Said first check for magnetized hall effect, check - Good. Next inspect Spout wire for grounding, Check - Good. Turned out my PIP was bad.

 

PIP? Glad you found it, whatever PIP is.

 

Picture in Picture... DUH!

 

Or, Peripheral Interface Processor.

 

MCR> PIP [300,13]=[300,14]*.PZ0;*/RE

DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) RSX-11M & M-PLUS on PDP-11 hardware, circa 1980s

 

But, why would anyone remember something as obscure as an 11? The REAL computers were PDP-8's, and the Straight 8 with no core and only disk was the grandfather thereof.

And, btw, Peripheral Interface Processor came from Control Data Corp's computers.

 

I worked on the 11s directly out of high school - first was an 11/44 but my favorite was the 11/70 because it was big & purple & pink and had colorful Star-Trek-y blinkenlights on the front.

Later came the VAX and DCL.

Perhaps so, I'm no expert on computers of this era and have never even seen a CDC machine (in real life).

 

You're making me feel old. I learned how to write and run programs on an IBM 1620 at Old Dominion College (now University) in 1964-65. It used punch cards and the language was Fortran.

 

i had this similar issue and ended up having to replace the distributor

 

Are you implying that we have digressed slightly from the thread's topic?

I guess I'm the guilty party as I asked the innocent question that took us afield. But, it sure was fun! I was already aware that Chris knows about DEC computers, but now I know Bill and I worked on the same computer, the IBM 1620, and almost the same year except I did it in 1965-66 at Kansas State.

Oh well, hopefully cartmans_twin will enlighten us on what the problem was and/or what PIP means.

 

PIP is Profile Ignition Pulse if I remember correctly.

 

So, saying "my PIP was bad" means the pulse itself was of poor quality and wasn't sufficient to fire the ignition on that cylinder? I'm just trying to learn.

 

OK, cavemen . This fancy EEC-IV distributer supplies crankshaft position and frequency info to the computer using a Profile Ignition Pick-Up (PIP) in place of the crankshaft position sensor used on less-evolved models.

The PIP has metal tabs that rotate through the stator assembly (Hall Effect Switch). As they do, a voltage signal is sent to the computer indicating the 10 degree BTDC crankshaft position. The computer then calculates a precise time to energize the spark output signal to the TFI module on the distributor. When the TFI receives this spark output signal, it shuts off the coil primary current and the collapsing field energizes the secondary output. Fire and dino juice go boom.

This system replaced the analogue gadgetry of spinning weights, springs, and vaccum hoses found on your engines.

 

If you read back I suggested it was in the shutter but was poohpoohed over it.