Welp, the newest episode of Engine Masters confirms the age old debate over whether or not the old standard "Orange Box" ignition controller is a worthwhile option in comparison to a modern digital ignition. I've been on the fence about upgrading my ignition recently.Years ago I recurved my distributor at home, it works well but at its core it's at least 20 years old. When paired with my equally old orange box I think I'm at a disadvantage in terms of all out performance, not to mention reliability. Watch the episode if you get a chance, it's a good one. New MSD system... Here I Come.

I never used the orange box, but used to use the chrome box. worked great to 7200rpm on my 340. I then decided to upgrade to Mallory, then MSD, then Jacobs, then MSD, then Ice Ignition. I think the Jacobs had the best performance because the engine seemed to run cleaner and crisper. Out of all these boxes i think the chrome box was a very good one.

I've used the MSD 6AL with a stock, recurved magnetic pickup Mopar distributor combo for 20 years.

Stone reliable and you can get all the parts at the local parts house.

Having a rev limiter and things like timing control is all the more reason to convert.

I dyno tested some Mopar ignition boxes years ago and they all performed so poorly that I tossed all that stuff and moved on. Above 6000 rpm all the ones I tested had issues.

Last time I used one of those - a chrome box - Jimmy Carter was president.

i tried a revenator .. did not work for me

Me neither.

I’ve had good luck with the FBO unit so far.

As my cars stock ignitions die, I'm replacing them w hidden GM 4 pin HEI modules.

My neighbor just did this on a Dart he's building. It's a neat setup!

whats the best one to use, an OE black one from the 70's or one of the aftermarket ones?

AAAAH, GM parts on a Mopar

So did Mopar Performance - Tossed

Back in the days of Direct Connection , there was actually some pretty good Ignition Boxes along with coils

Now try piecing together a decent so called factory oem system using all this Chinese mismatched crap available today

It’s truly amazing how many different ECU / Ignition modules / coils fail above 5,000 RPMs

In reality FBO is about your only COMPLETE system if you want to stay Inductive

Yeah that is my take on it to. 30 or 40 years ago the MP stuff was probably okay to use but when I ran my tests 20 years ago the stuff was hit or miss at best. My guess is that it is even worse now. I've seen some photos of what the insides of the Mopar ignition boxes look like now and they are all offshore junk with cheap parts. Chinese slave labor type of components.

Be careful. I'm in FB jail for telling the truth about some of the stuff produced by our Far East brothers and sisters. Apparently Mr Z thinks they are great and the things they make are not "C******* trash"..

It's all suspect, even the "good" MSD stuff. Gotta love equity firms.

Not sure I'd consider a 1970s GM solution to be the right answer though.

In my version of “purple shafts and pinion snubbers” mopar guy ways.... I’m still using a MSD 6AL. I just can’t make that leap to the programmable stuff. Prob has something to do with thinking about how my Racepak fought me and won most the time. Do I REALLY want to rely on stuff like that to run the car??.

Wow, what ever happened to free speech? It sad how this country seems to be controlled by very few big moguls that think they know the answers to everything and us lowly sheep need to just follow what they think is best for us. Somehow they seem to be the richest, as well. I bet they won’t give up their wealth and share that!

MSD Test proven all the way around.... Plenty of them in the winners circle...

The best Chrysler ECUs I ever had.... were the USA MP chrome box with black heat sink, and the standard motor products stock replacement chrome box.
I did have one orange box that worked really well, I used it until it became a rust ball but it refused to die.
All those are still in a box somewhere, as they aren't really worth anything to anyone but could be used in an emergency.
The others I've had that worked all went into cars that were sold off at some point.

I had about a half dozen orange boxes that were garbage, or failed within a few months. None of those even lasted a year in daily driving.
I had one that caused the engine to stall in exactly the same spot, every day on the way home from work.
Every diagnosis known to man was done, no problems found. Swap the box: fixed. Ridiculous.
Now: I wish I had saved a junk one, to hide an HEI module inside.

I had two brand new untested usa orange ecus.... somebody just had to have them, so I sold them as-is/at your own risk.

My take on it is, the vendor cheapened up the product until it was no good anymore. As someone who scrounged up the prints for the old
Direct Connection ECUs, put them on my desk and read them....I can tell you MP had very little say in their demise
except either 1. keep the products 2. kill the products. Eventually they were killed off.

You can blame MP for them being junk if you want to, with the rationale "they made it to MP's specs!". That's also what I would think, if I was on the outside.
But: If you knew exactly what MP's specs did, and (especially) did not consist of back then....you'd probably see what I mean.

I did have a small amount of input on the Gold Box being killed off, but that happened long before the other two.

For me, it's HEI module/Ford TFI coil for low buck upgrades, msd for street/strip.

I like and use the MSD7C boxes on the street until they die