there is no heat on the distributor. try feeling one next time. a 130' dist is not hot. feel the module, you will feel no heat. if that was the case as you seem to believe, how come gm's modules which are mounted in the dist where they get less air, dont fail more? because people buy crap parts, then blame it on design errors. by the way, since 1974 gm has been installing modules in the dist, they are still doing it in the c7000 with the 5.7 and 7.4l motors.

 

the gm hei is in the back and not so close to the cooling system where some of the heat is, and it is better. i did not have a module from any auto store. i know a ford tech that knows anything about ford history. you can ask him he knows it all . he works at ford also. i guess he does not know what he is talking about.

 

actually the mis informed believe the module is what make the spark to fire the coil, like the old dura spark. that is where they are wrong. the modules job is to do one thing. make a refernce signal for the ecm to process. it converts a hall affect signal to a digital 5 volt signal, and the ecm than takes that signal and uses it to find engine speed to fire the injectors at and make a signal to send to the coil. the timing is all controlled by the ecm which eliminate the distributer from doing but only two jobs. one as a engine speed refernce unit, and distributing current from the coil to the approriate high tension wire. not all hei are in the back, as well as not all tfi are in the front. the buick v6 and v8 are in the front, as well as some olds motors. the ford v6 have the dist mounted in the rear. the heat plays little to kno heat factor in the modules life. the average dura spark handle about 6-8(depending on motor) signals per each rotation. the tfi handles thousands per rotation. since it is the reference point for the ecm to get its information, as well as it handles the timing circut. and all the other ign info. basically it is a small ecm. the life of the tfi is a hundred if not more times longer than the dura spark if you take into account how many time the module is requires to handle one peice of information... Kurt

 

Well, I hate to say, maybe aftermarket TFIs are junk, maybe that is the case. However, Ford's aren't any better. The one on my '84 went out at 40k miles. And it was factory ford, installed by the factory, in the factory.

The life of a TFI should last indefinately. it is a solid state device. Something is making them go out, it is probably heat, vibration, or static. It shouldn't matter it is does 1000 trillion readings in a second. It is solid state, it doesn't wear out; if it did, then your P4 chip would wear out too. They don't. They just get over heated, fry or get zapped by static.

TFIs were a poor design from Ford, that is why Ford was sued and they lost the case and had to pay up.

Maybe Duraspark is 100 years old, but its still sparking, and my TFI isn't. Case closed.

Btw, digital isn't better than analog, and analog isn't any better than digital. It is comparing apples to oranges. They both have their place.

 

point proved thank you bremen.

 

Now granted, I am not saying that TFI doesn't provide better spark control, it most likely does. It was designed to. I believe, the coil puts out more power. I know that DSII is more reliable, because it is simpler. Nobody can deny that maybe for every 100 TFI modules that go bad, probably only 1 DSII module goes bad. If that. I know I've never had to replace it, whereas I have changed my TFI twice.

 

the main point is why would you want to go from a digital signal then convert it to analog? there is no way to keep the ford fi and discard the tfi, without breaking the bank. if you are running the dura spark the msd will help, alot. you will see little to no positive change with the msd ignition on the tfi.

 

WHEW!

Ok, so everyone agree's the MSD is a waist of time on the TFI. Anything else simple I could do? I'm not taking off the TFI or EEC or anything like that.

I don't know why the motor dosn't fire right off, it only has 40K on it. After it starts it runs like a top. New plugs, wires, cap, rotor, all that good stuff.

I have the msd box already (not new, but works) Maybe I'll throw it on there anyway and see if theres any difference, if not I'll pull it off and throw it on ebay, or better yet, put it on the 67 stang.

Still no opinions on the Holley TFI module?

 

never tried any of the performance tfi modules, cant see how they would really do any more. what type of fuel pressures do you have? have seen my fair share of fuel filters causing poor starting problems. also take a look for a leaky injector. this can cause a cylinder to flood and have poor starting too. check resistance at the coil on the primary and secondary sides. the e coils were a real peice of junk, and caused there fair share of problems. thats where the performance parts can come in. try a variable output coil(jacobs or mallory) if it tests bad. the coils can cause there fair share of problems upstream. when you say in cranks a few times, how many would you guess.. less than ten more than 20? the ecm will often take a second to get its "bearings" straight, before it fires the injectors. it is usually no more than 10 full rotations. got any codes? a bad intake temp sensor in the intake can cause poor starting in cold weather, if it thinks its hot it will not" cold start" the injectors. same in hot weather only it will dump to much fuel. take a resistance reading cold, than hot. any difference will indiacate a good sensor. Kurt

 

Thanks for the tips. The fuel filter is only a few months old, so I doubt that's anything. I've got a new MSD blaster TFI coil on there (as of 2 weeks ago) with no real change in anything. The truck dosn't crank and crank, it just dosn't fire off on the first tap like I'd like it to. Sometimes it hits right off. Other times it cranks 2-3 times before it starts, and when it does this it dosn't really rumble to life, it just barely keeps itself running at 500 rpm's for a second or two (sounding like it's about to stall, but it dosn't) before it pulls itself up to idle speed.

It DOES always start, just not real strong all the time. Charging system, battery, all fine, just dosn't want to start sometimes. Has nothing to do with motor or outside temp.

Not even a real big issue, just annoying sometimes, and makes my truck (which is clean looking) look like a pos when I'm starting it in front of friends, chebby guys, or babes.

 

try cleaning the iac motor. this can also cause rough starting conditions, and the rough idle condition. i really would get your hands on a fuel pressure gauge. the symptons you are describing go hand and hand with a leaky injector..

 

if you don't use the msd box you wanna sell it