Ignition--final word?
Freshman User
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 29
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From: Dickinson, TX
Ignition--final word?
After returning a Jacob's unit, I received a candid e-mail from the company that sold me the product. Thought I'd share it with you since there have been some questions as to whether or not an ignition will truly help performance on a truck that is fairly close to stock.
The bottom line from his e-mail was that the stock ignition supplies enough output to make the spark necessary for the engine to fire under most conditions any of us would ever see. An aftermarket ignition that supplies more sparks or higher spark voltage is not necessarily going to improve anything at all (I'm a case in point, as are many others from this site.) If your engine is healthy, you are unlikely to see any improvement at all.
Supercharged engines will benefit from an ignition upgrade. I'm not sure there's much short of that that will see a benefit, as the rep didn't go into a whole lot of detail... Suffice it to say that for most of us, air flow upgrades are first choice and shelling out $300+ for an ignition will likely be disappointing.
I wish they'd been so honest before I went through all the trouble or buying/returning an ignition...
-Mike
The bottom line from his e-mail was that the stock ignition supplies enough output to make the spark necessary for the engine to fire under most conditions any of us would ever see. An aftermarket ignition that supplies more sparks or higher spark voltage is not necessarily going to improve anything at all (I'm a case in point, as are many others from this site.) If your engine is healthy, you are unlikely to see any improvement at all.
Supercharged engines will benefit from an ignition upgrade. I'm not sure there's much short of that that will see a benefit, as the rep didn't go into a whole lot of detail... Suffice it to say that for most of us, air flow upgrades are first choice and shelling out $300+ for an ignition will likely be disappointing.
I wish they'd been so honest before I went through all the trouble or buying/returning an ignition...
-Mike
Postmaster
Joined: Jun 1999
Posts: 2,719
Likes: 1
From: Lee's Summit MO
Ignition--final word?
I find my results were different. I don't believe the performance was much better, but by the feel, it helped. The biggest difference for me was in mileage. I gained 2mpg alone with my MSD ignition.
'93 F-150 loaded and modified!
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