I had a 6AL capacitance discharge unit that sat for a couple of years in the box. I put it in my 914, and it ran for about 3 weeks. Then it quit. Is this a common problem? I cannot tell from talking with the company whether or not they have much confidence in the product. Any ideas would be appreciated.

With the Mallory 6AL? No problems, ever. I've used them for over 10 years. That being said I had a problem or two with the UniLite modules. Nothing the Mallory supplied filter didn't fix though.

Remember that the 6AL needs to be triggered to fire! Check your dizzy.

I have had one in my 6 for a couple of years and it has performed flawlessly!

I have two of them that have been flawless.
They are sensitive to proper wiring. I'd check all of your connections, ground, and pickups

Sorry, I meant MSD 6AL. Older version with rev limiter pills.

I've heard of those going bad... Still need to verify your points(-replacement) are working.

My brother's just went out a few days ago.
While we were trying to set the timing with me trying to hold the revs up, I kept noticing the tach dropping out.
You could see it, but not hear it. He also said the timing light was acting strange.

I warned him that meant the coil was not getting a signal and was either the MSD or the dist causing the trouble.

He replaced the dist, but two weeks later the MSD just completely quit working.

MSD's are good Units that can go bad. I've had one that took a Shit after 4 Years and MSD replaced it N/C. I will be running Two MSD's Unit with my Twin-Plug, but I will always have a Spare for when I'm at the Track

MSD is VERY responsive to bad unit and as TC said, a lot of the time they will repair/replace n/c.

That is what i had heard, but when i called they wanted my credit card number and nothing else. When i asked how reliable the units were the response was that any repairs were warranted for thirty days. I said, oh i thought they had transferred me to the repair department, and the response was "they dont talk to you. I just get your data."

As i say, i had heard they were responsive as well, but neither of the two people i talked with had much to say beyond it was out of warrantee. No surprise and certainly no interest. Frankly they sounded overwhelmed. I earlier had called asking if the unit was supposed to click with each spark, and the guy didnt know what i was talking about didnt know why i was worried about it and wanted me off the phone asap. I still am not certain if that is normal. He said it was the transformer, and normal, but when transformers click, that means the windings are moving. Not good usually.

With that said, i bought a new one, so i am not just trying to trash them.

Trouble free for at least 10 years. Knock on wood.

Sad to hear this. Sounds like they've gone the typical corporate America route

One thing about the 6al is that there are a lot of counterfeits on the market. If you got it off of evilbay for a smoking deal....might not be that great of a deal.

MSD has a tech forum that is very good. There are MSD folks monitoring questions and are quite responsive. They want to register but it has worked for me...

See : http://www.msdignition.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3

Thanks everyone. I suspect that one problem is that I did not replace the spark wires at the same time. It matt be that the EMF from them affected the unit. Going to try more modern wires this time around. I was using stock Beru wires. Not that old, but aren't they solid core nonetheless?

The trigger is an optical Crane unit. Fortunately I was able to simply hook that up to the coil and keep driving. Followed MSD instructions on that one, and I think that the Crane unit I have simply grounds the primary, just like a set of points.

FYI, I think MSD has been having some buisiness problems lately:

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/09...-11-bankruptcy/

Also, counterfeiting has been an issue:

http://www.hotrod.com/feature_stories/1311...ts/viewall.html

Kind of sad as they are the only big aftermarket company anywhere near me (El Paso), and I hope they can pull it out--in the past I have had nothing but good experiences with their products (I have a lot of American V8 junk as well as 914s).