Electronic Ignition.. what type should I go for?
the £30 maplin jobbie or the £130 123 ecas one?
The main target is to reduce fuel consumption.
cheers
Justin

Much though I like electronic ignition it won't materially reduce your fuel consumption over correctly set points and timing.

I tend to fit 123, its reliable, burnt out coils are a thing of the past.

However if you want to reduce fuel consumption a wooden block under the loud pedal is cheaper and more effective.

When you really want to go for less fuelconsumtion you have to go for a programmable ecu (for example kdfi,megasquirt are the cheapest..) the big advantage is that you can self program your ignition curve and because the ecu has a pressure sensor map it messures the pressure in the inlet manifold
which means when you have low inletmanifold pressure ( at cruising) you can give extra pre ignition so that your fuel is burning earlier meaning more power so you can give less throttle for the same speed meaning less fuelconsumtion..
My ignition go's as far as 40 degrees advance!!!!!!!

See my topic 2cv turbo..

When you don't want to go as far as that you should go for a 123 ignition with map sensor, I assume they do the same.


With the kdfi which I use my fulconsumption went from 9km on a liter lpg to
14 km. on a liter lpg.....

But now I conterted it to a turbo you don't really want to know (6 km to a liter lpg average)...


When you want big saving take a single valve carburator (early 70') 2cv6 complet with the propreet manifold, this givés you intsant about 1 or 2 liters fuel saving with onlyvery little power loss.

depends what you want?
I can go out to a points car that i have set up and simply switch it on

if you want the points to last longer then Velleman or Boyer

Reducing the maintenance 123 may have an advantage, but beware it does need carefull set up, can stop working if the battery or the ignition switch are playing up, Some have the advantage that they are easier on the coil. Lummi does similar with a fatter spark.

if you want to really get into it then LPGOs suggestion gives plenty of scope for playing around ....if you know what your doing.

Probably comes down to cash as there isnt really that much in it if they are set up properly apart from the full on programmed stuff but then its easy to stuff that up too!

no easy answer im afraid but see the bottom line of this post!
Sean

Here you can seen my ignition table for my turbo 2cv, the Y axle is the inlet manifold pressure, the x axle are the rpm , a 2 2cv go's to 100 (1 bar ) absolute airpressure but because I have a 2cv turbo it go's to 1.5 bar of boost. So for every cell you can adjust your ignition angle, you can do a rev limiter (mine kicks in at 6500 rpm) and even a rpm limiter when your engine is cold. For advanced users yoo can even install a knock sensor, so when your engine starts to knock you can retard the igtnition ( or with injection you can add extra fuell).
AS you can see under boost my ignition retards as far as 22 degrees and still
my cars starts to knock when boost go's higher then 1.2bar (220 in the graph), because it's a standard engine.
so this is everything, you need for better milage

(I draw 2 lines, in between is the normal use for an engine)

i havent read all the above

keep your points, as said if set up correctly fuel consumption will be fine

i was getting 50-60 (i recon) when i re set my points and timing correctly, no joke!! im going to redo it soon though as im down to about 40

Justin, it's worth being clear about what after-market electronic ignition systems can actually do to 'improve' your car:

2 basic things: (1) they reduce the need for regular points maintenance, and (2) they help maintain the ignition timing, and hence performance and fuel economy. They won't actually improve performance and economy over what a perfect condition 'standard' system will do.

(I'm not including advanced systems like programmable megasquirts and the like in this...!)

What I'm saying is, if your points are set up perfectly and the rest of your ignition system is also in excellent order, then you will already be achieving the maximum performance and fuel economy for your car. However, the problem with points is that they 'arc' and this erodes one side of the contacts and the 'stuff' crosses over and builds up on t'other - ergo the gap will alter, timing will go out, and perfonomy (gettit ) will suffer. Therefore, if you only clean and reset your points once every year or so, then by the time you do this, it's very likely that your timing and perf and onomy will have deteriorated by - oooh - 10%-ish? I read somewhere that your carefully set up points will start to noticeably go 'out' after only a few weeks...

So, if you are happy to file down and reset your points every, say, 6 months, then your car should continue to run at pretty much peak levels - no need for going leccy.

Taking into account cost vs benefit, one suggestion I'd make would be to consider adding an electronic igniton device such as a Boyer or Sparkrite type unit. You will still keep your points, but they won't spark-erode any more; they should therefore keep their timing for well over a year, probably much longer (the gap will still alter a tiny amount due to wear of the cam lobe against the breaker arm, but this will be minimal.) You can pick up these units for around £15 on fleabay, so good value. (They should also provide a heftier spark which could help when starting with a weak battery or in cold weather, or might help to overcome the effects of less-then-perfect cables, etc...)

If you can afford it, then a fully electronic system (Lumenition or 123 type stuff) will replace your points and - if set up correctly in the first place - should mean that your ignition system will stay at peak setting for ever...

Neither, tho', will actually improve anything over what a perfectly set up standard system will do. To the best of my understanding!

(I have bought brand new 'old stock' Sparkrite ignition systems for my Chevaux...)

Curiosity aroused, trawled the on line tat shop for "sparkrite"

should be here by Wed
We'll see how it behaves

Sean

Found some very interesting stuff yesterday......
a diy. electronic ignition..... especially for the 2cv

http://www.francophone.ch/saluuut/allumage.html


I've read over and over again, and I like it much, (but I doen't understand the laout (where do you get 5volt from) and so on.

You can make your own ignition curve, but you need to programm an IC,but here in Holland a guy does it for 3 euros, so I think the whole thing will cost you about 30 euro!!!!! and some time to solder it together




Can someone tell me if this works.

the mapping is on a programmable chip

trigger for the programme is via a hall sensor which will be on the points carrier or a pickup on the flywheel, the power for this pickup comes from the chip and is 5v

no idea if it works all depends what's on the chip, but thats where the 5v comes from.