CnP (coil near plug) is almost ready to run

It has taken me a while to get the parts designed and built but I'm close now with my CnP project. This bracket kit is designed to hang two pairs of smart coils on a big block with aftermarket valve covers. The folks at Firecore built the custom wires and they fit perfectly. This setup will allow me to get rid of the big MAS 7AL ignition system as well as the MSD coil and the Jesel beltdrive distributor. Should have it up and running on the dyno in a few weeks.

Looks good Andy
What type of sensors and trigger wheels do you use to generate the signal? Something you made or off the shelf MSD or Holley. I would like to do something like this with a knock sensor for when I get some crap fuel when I'm out in the middle of nowhere.
I heard some detonation the other day when couldn't get fuel at my usual pump.
Gus

What do you expect to gain in power?

I had to make my own trigger wheel and cam sensor. The other sensors come in the Holley EFI kit that I got. Here are pictures of the cam and crank sensors.

That looks great!

Good stuff Andy! You are paving the way for us Mopar guys

Are you planning to tune by cylinder- timing and mixture. It would be interesting to see if there is extra power to be had or if the result is just a smoother running engine

Yes we'll tune by cylinder if needed. We have tuned fuel by cylinder with the EFI but now we can do ignition timing also. I don't have any experience with this so it will be a learning curve.

I designed a second mounting hole into the coil brackets so a person can swing the coil into a horizontal position. With the coil mounted horizontal then you can use a less expensive 90 degree boot. I prefer the 90-90 style plug wire but some folks might prefer the 45 degree coil boot. Either type of boot will work with this coil bracket design.

Nice !!!!! Looks very expensive$$$$$$$$$$$$

Well if you look at the total cost picture it isn't too bad when compared to what a carb + ignition + data logger costs.

The Holley EFI system will replace the carb + the ignition box + coil + data logger. For a race guy those things are pretty expensive. A tuner 4500 carb can be $2000, the MSD 7AL + big coil is about $1000 and a data logger can be several thousand. So if you buy a complete Holley EFI system with coil packs for $5000 then it is about a wash.

With the Holley EFI system you get things like start retard, high speed retard, high speed lean out, two step, power adder control, etc. for free. All you have to do is program the spark and fuel tables to do those things. If you are a carb and ignition guy then you have to go to MSD and buy add on parts.

Why does it seem like every one of Andy's pictures is taken by a professional photographer? :}

Nice work Andy! (Including the pictures)

Big Baller: Shot Caller

I've got nothin' but love for you, Andy. You are a pro. Everything you turn out looks sleek.

Getting rid of the distributor seems to be a step in the right direction. Crane Cams' video showed their optical trigger distributor as being more accurate, while still having something like plus/minus two degrees while the next best was something like twice that much. That really woke me up. Even the crank trigger is about accurate for the first pair of cylinders and then it gets progressively worse because of crankshaft torsion. Valve timing is the same way with the last two cylinders having their opening and closing events different than the first two cylinders. And of course, everything in between. NASCAR engine builders were working with individual cylinder stuff 10 or more years ago, changing timing on each individual cylinder to optimize power output. They were chasing horsepower changes I'd consider to be in the testing error.

R.

I did individual cylinder adjustments on a CNP test engine since the EGTs were scattered. The engine had to stay at full throttle for a relatively long time. I had the luxury of the customer's dyno that had 8 lambda sensors. I first balanced the AF ratios and then played with the steady state timing looking at both EGTs and the effect of timing on AF. Picked up almost 3% torque. CNP made it easy and I didn't even have to leave the control room.

A secondary note: I scoped some of the high impedance signals and saw very little electrical noise compared to what I normally would see. I could have had listened to an AM radio in the same room.

Here is an interesting video showing 8 02 sensors. Megasquirt 3 can adjust cylinder trim per cylinder if you give it the data from 8 02s. Look how crazy the trim is until everything starts working together. I can't remember how much power they said this was worth but on an engine masters entry any power is worth it, I want to say it was 10-12HP under the curve.

https://youtu.be/6kQGp-fHuFc

Another option is to fab up brackets that move the coils off the top of the valve covers to the outer edge of the valve covers or the inner fender. This way is less cumbersome when removing the valve cover. We have seen a few COPO cars that moved the coil packs off the valve covers for a very clean look.

Fo Sho

I'm using HP manifolds in my car so I'll put the coils on the frame rails. With dyno headers the plug routing works out great with the coils on the valve covers.

I'm not hung up on where the coils should go, I think it just depends on the application. When I take my engine to the dyno I like to have everything hung on the engine so I don't have to find a place on the dyno to mount things. If I have the engine 100% self contained then it is easy to just roll it on and off the dyno without messing around for half a day trying to figure out how to hang parts.

CNP parts for Mopars are now available from FAST Man EFI. Go to the CNP page on the fastmanefi.com site for all the details and pricing.

I also have available a custom pigtail for the Holley HP and Dominator systems that connects the 36X crank trigger and the cam sensor directly into the Holley harness.

Great to know, Rich.. Excellent work you guys.. Thank you for your trust with the ignition leads.

I plan to make the switch next winter. Ill have the coils on the frame rails and going with mega squirt 3pro Ultimate. Might even go 16 injector..

Why not just make the spacers a hair wider so you can keep the coil output low for all the coils and have all the wires the same length?
Looks like they would all be upside down..
MAybe the mounting bolts are staggered. Cant tell.

The coils can be flipped over so the wires are the same length but then they aren't centered between the plugs. Either way works, whatever a person prefers. The coils can be angled or straight, whichever a person prefers. Just depends if you want a 45 or 90 degree boot.

I see what youre saying. I was just looking at ease of manufacture.

I anodized the brackets and spacers so everything now is black. Seems to look a little better with the black coils. This is probably how I'll sell the setup, just need to figure out how to get the cost down so the average guy can afford it.

I might eliminate the dogbone bracket and use two smaller mounting plates. I think that will save some money since the dogbone bracket costs a lot to make.

The wire are like that to clear the header primaries.. Very nice, Andy. If you want to offer this as a kit, call me.. Any pics with the headers on? Is there a horsepower difference than let's say, a Digital 7 MSD box? Hotter spark, so can you add more fuel, while keeping your A/F ratio nice? Thanks

I'm not sure if CNP makes more power or not. It could in theory since it allows you to tune each cylinder by itself but I'm not sure how much power that makes.

Nice thing about CNP is that it gets rid of the big MSD box and coil. It also gets rid of add on boxes such as start retard, high speed retard, two step, etc. since all of that functionality is built into the EFI box. Plus with EFI you have a built in data logger so that is another thing that you can get rid of. And you get rid of the distributor which is a hassle on a lot of big block Mopar engines.

The coils only have to work 1/8th as much when you have one coil and the plug wires are nice and short.

I like the setup but I haven't run it yet. I'm getting close to having everything on hand. Your wires were the finishing touch on that part of the kit. Perfect fit and much better than anything I could build myself.

How much for the cam sensor?

I have all the pricing on the CNP page on my website (fastmanefi.com), but the sensor with its mount (B or RB) is about $300.