Can you go overboard on ignition? I'm presently running a digital 6 MSD box. Thinking of up grading to a 7 box is it worth it or over kill?
Like fuel system they say you can never go to big on fuel that's control by a regular.
Like to hear your thoughts on this
The car is a strip only car.....THX.

I think its kind of like fuel octane, once you have enough, your have enough and adding more won't do any good. But how do you know if you have enough without trying more? lol

My thoughts are hotter spark cleaner combustion with the ability to kind of grow into future upgrades with say a power adder. Those digital 7 box does so much it will be a learning curve for me.

Have you considered a grid ? They appear to have excellent features that would work well with power adders.

Yes, upgrade it. Those 6 boxes are a joke.

Que all the guys running 4 second 1/4 times with a 1980 6 box. I stand by what I’ve said. A 7 should be the MINIMUM ignition on most anything.

If you are really serious about an upgrade, go all the way and get the Grid. Pretty impressive and will be the last ignition you will ever need.

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x2. Where it will benefit is when the tune is off a little and/or you're exceeding the capability of the ignition + plug gap with cylinder pressure.

If your happy with what you have now and don't plan on adding more power later use what you got
Are you aware that when MSD brought out the digital 6 boxes, they had a lot of failures do to some of the internal components failing
I have bought and raced with the bigger MSD race boxes starting with the 404 series boxes back in 1974 or so and then switching to the 7 boxes later, I had one MSD7C box fail at the race's years ago
I did kill one race box mounted on the Iner fenderwell in the engine compartment by flooding it with water while cleaning up the engine compartment
MSD fix it with no charge
As far as the MSD grid and ignition box needed to go with it I have heard they are awesome
I bought one, MSD grid, years ago and haven't use it yet I did call MSD to see which MSD ignition boxes it would work with and which boxes it wouldn't work on, they said it would work on all the 7 series race boxes I own back then

Those new 7 digital does a lot data logging, cylinder individual cylinder timing etc.This MSD 6 box has been in the car for 15-20 years now (And it's been pretty reliable so far) so if i decide for an upgrade I'm hoping to get another 15-20 out of it...Lol......But seriously I'm looking to upgrade the drivetrain (Boost) someday and just thinking maybe now is the time for an upgrade.

As far as the MSD grid and ignition box needed to go with it I have heard they are awesome up
Don't know a lot about the grid but i need to do some research on that

The grid does data logging and comes with it's own s/ware. It also connects to a Racepak. It will do Individual cylinder timing, traction control (slew rate), O2 and it can be adjustable from the drivers seat, you just need the appropriate add on module. Thw whole system is basically a 7 series system with optional extra's, I'm pretty impressed with mine

As long as you can light the mixture, a hotter spark will not increase HP. Cylinder pressure and rpm levels determine the amount of energy to jump the gap on a plug. You have to ionize the air between the gap to build a spark. An MSD digital 6 box will fire most normally aspirated engines if it is working correctly. Supercharged turbo etc. may need more spark. Just because OEM engines use big plug gaps, does not mean performance engines need to do so as well. .030 to .035 is all that is needed, leave the .060 gaps for your daily driver. The next thing is all the other stuff some of the boxes do. Electronic control of ignition timing is a very good thing in my opinion for a performance engine, as well as data logging capability, you can't make good tuning decisions unless you have good info to make them with. If it is a drag only car and you are going to spend the money something like the grid would be my choice, just because of all the other stuff it can do besides spark the plug.

So let the box match your performance level and wallet.

This ^^^^^^ assumes all is well in the combustion chamber. Sorry but it’s not. You can’t have too much ignition. I’ve tested it far too much to say it doesn’t. I have an engine on the dyno right now and once it’s sorted out I’m going to change to a 7 box. I’m betting it picks up power everywhere over the 6. We will see.

Please keep us in the loop on that.......

Hey Cab you mention the 404 box sometimes in these ignition topics. I picked an old 404BC at a swap meet about 25-30 years ago and it made my car run strong and very crisp with instant throttle response. I was very sad when it died idling in the driveway one day and I found out MSD doesn't service this unit anymore.

Gus

If the 7 makes more power than the 6 then it did not have enough spark. Have you ever run an ignition scope with your engines on the dyno? By looking at the burn time, you can see if it has enough spark. I have seen on my dyno that a cheap ignition module in a HEI, will drop 20HP really fast. But again watch the spark KV and the burn time and you will see why. Also many ignition boxes will retard the timing at higher RPM's and that is the reason for lost power not spark intensity.

Quick story, had a buddy years ago with a big block Camaro, 10 second car, just bought a Mallory unilite ignition system for it. Car made a good pass, second pass the plastic shutter wheel broke. My buddy was mad that his weekend was ruined. Bought a single points distributor from the swap meet also going on at the event. Used the Mallory coil, went into town got a new set of points, car ran just the same. My buddy could not believe it.

If you decide to buy a Grid...buy 2 so you can swap it out WHEN it fails for no apparent reason. Everyone I know that has one has a spare in the trailer. That's some expensive stuff to have to keep a spare around.

I'll stick w/ my dinosaur 6AL. If I ever "upgrade" again, it'll be to an old 7AL-3, or something similar, just to see if the 7 is worth any power. The only time I've killed an old analog box was when I tried to crank it w/ a nearly dead battery.

If you want to add data logging, and you want to eventually add boost. Buy an EFI system and use just the ignition side of it. Data logging like crazy built in, precise ignition control etc. I would do that and run 8 coils.

I always preach the Megasquirt stuff because it is cheap and mine has been rock solid reliable for 7 years now. I have had to replace one of my salvage yard GM trucks coils in that time frame. It is easily the best money I have ever spent on my car.

What drove me down the EFI road was learning to much about carbs and not liking the process of fine tuning them for the road. The second reason was all of my MSD stuff(and it was old) started to fail, I had a coil(that wasn't old) leave me on the side of the road, a digital 6 box literally go up in smoke and leave me on the side of the road, and a digital 6 box that misfired consistently but always tested good. Now the only MSD product I have is the bracket that holds my crank sensor. I have been on the side of the road for other reasons since then but nothing ignition related!

Uhh, yeah I have had a scope hooked up to the dyno. And my distributor machine. And I will again.

There is a flaw in your anecdote. Just because your buddy’s car ran the same on points means little. Maybe his chassis was a sponge? Who knows. The other issue is you might gain 8, 10 or 12 HP with an ignition upgrade. The sad fact is most guys aren’t good enough drivers to show a change in MPH with that little gain.

FWIW I have three cars with MSD Grids in them, there is also one in the heads up car. We have only had ONE fail in all the years using them and that was from some welding for a front bump steer kit hit the crank trigger pickup wire and fried it. Otherwise they have been trouble free and one of them is on its 7th year in the dragster