I figured someone has tried to locate the wheel on the end of the crank sitting out in front of the fan instead of behind it.

Yea? Nea?

Ideally, it would have to be balanced perfectly (along with the rest of the rotating assembly) and have to be made as light as possible.

This way the sensor could be mounted on a bracket on the outside of the fan housing.

The alt. belt could be a hassle to replace, but if the bracket is designed correctly, it can be removed and replaced without messing up the alignment with the crank wheel sensor.

The pulley mount for the '76 smog air pump is similar. The pulley mount has an end bearing, however might have a rubber damper, don't remember exactly.

Nice 3D!

Mike,

You show all these CAD drawings of interesting parts that you come up with...how hard is it to have these parts made? More importantly, how much do they cost to have made? If it is reasonable, I would mind having a few one-off parts made up for my engine. They might be useful for other also, but we will have to see.

-Britain

I like the idea.. but I personally feel this is something that isnt needed. Crank triggered would be nice.. but will people buy it ?? The solution needs to be stupid simple... and that may involve a stock 050 dizzy or even cheaper.. the current one.

I spoke about this ALOT at the Ramble. The consenus was: no need for crank trigger unless the person was installing a new engine and already had the engine out. Your setup is a tad better... it bolts on.



B

Mike

It's not that hard to get the Ford trigger wheel and sensor behind the fan. I think that's going to work out fine. I just ran 2 EDIS units off of 1 Sensor for about and hour. No heat, no problems. Seeing all eight spark plugs firing is sure a neat sight. I'm pretty well convinced I could get a MegasquirtnEDIS wasted spark system up and going in a week. Trigger wheel and sensor are mounted, EDIS modules and coils are tested and fire in the limphome mode. All I need to do is supply the advance.

Dave

The belt is the reason I did mine behind the fan.

Like Brad said, how big would the market be.

One problem would be if you ever forgot a rag or wrench in there it would take the crank sensor right off.

I'm not sure what the real failure rate of the sensors are, maybe they are robust enough to not have to worry about being able to easily access them, it's just that I read some posts about the sensors being behind the fan and it sounded like a PITA if something fails or needs adjustment, hopefully it is a set-n-forget item !!!!!

I agree, a bolt-on FI system is more important or desirable to most 914 owners since this is the system that is causing the most problems and it can cost dearly to repair (if you had to buy brand new parts such as the MPS)
I have not heard of too many ignition problems that cannot be easily repaired.

The smog pulley has a rubber dampener between the fan and the shaft, not needed with this idea since it has no external side load on it.

Britain, the cost all depends on the complexity and the time/effort/operations needed to make it, the material is dirt cheap (aluminum is less than 4 bucks per pound)

I picked up my crank sensor today from Pick-n-pull, 21 dollars for the wheel and sensor.....the crank pulley was a PITA to remove since the motor kept turning over while I tried to loosen the 19mm bolt....I had no tools with me that would hold the crank still and the car was an automatic, so that was no help......luckly, I noticed that the head was loose on the motor (all bolts removed!!!) so I filled two of the cylinders with rocks, yes rocks and put the head back on held by two nuts....this way I was able to remove the bolt holding the pulley on since the pistons could not compress the rocks !!!!!

The motor was already thrashed, it looks like someone dropped a nut or bolt into one of the cylinders when the car was running.


Hey Dave,

Wild guess here....do you think that the code for the MSnEDIS would still work without the EDIS hooked up?? Meaning that you could run a distributor like you currently are and all you'd have to do to run the EDIS is plug it in to the MS, and connect the plug wires from the distributor to the ford coil pack....
this might not make sence here, but then again, maybe it does, LOL

Why do this, well, back up or just to test the difference between crankfire and distributor ignition.

Mike

If you want to run the trigger off the dizzy, make a 70-2 trigger wheel and and use a VR sensor with the EDIS4 module. I toyed with this idea but decided on crankfire. The timing resolution is cut in half with the dizzy wheel and I wasn't sure if the EDIS sensor would work with the tiny teeth. For a one off trigger wheel it was too much money to gamble, but if you were doing a bunch it wouldn't be so bad.

I think the VR sensor, trigger wheel and EDIS modules all work together, so I don't think it would trigger with any other sensor input. You can mess with the size of the wheel but not the 35/1 ratio. I'm not sure of how small the teeth can be but I know one guy did a wheel for the distributor.

This I 'am sure about. The modules and sensors are tough. The cars I got my stuff out of were really trashed and the engine compartments had been open to the weather for a while. I've tested 3 different units off of 3 different totals and all of them work.

My issues are where to try to head. I've pretty well decided that I can't get rid of the wasted spark aspect of the system. I've tried to switch the hot lead to the primary side of the coil and that didn't work, and I'm convinced if I try to switch the ground side I will lose dwell control since the EDIS module uses the flyback from the primary to control dwell. So, I think we're stuck with wasted spark. Originally, I thought I would do COP but I can't find units I know will work and at $100 a pop I don't want to gamble so it's either as design with 2 cylinders per coil or twin plug with 1 coil per.

Dave

Mike,

Just to give me a reference, how much would something like that cost to have machined?

-Britain

Mike, it can't be done.


That's what you wanted to hear, right?

Britain,

A "one-off" part like that? $100 to $150, depending on the shop (not including the 36-1 wheel, that is a seperate piece)

Dave,

I guess I wasn't clear (not the first time, LOL)

Right now, you could hook up all the EDIS parts to your motor, but keep ALL of the current ignition working exactly as is (dist, coil, wires)... the MS is triggered when the coil collapses as it normally would.

Now, lets say all you have to do is swap sparkplug wires from the dist. to the coil pack and now the EDIS is running (no dist, no coil, just all EDIS)

I know that R9 and D10 need replacing, but one could wire the box to make it switch activated to go back and forth depending on which ignition is being used...again, this would only be needed if you wanted to do back to back tests or for some odd reason needed a reduntant ignition.

Worse case would be that you'd have to store all the map values for each MS configuration and load 'em when going back and forth.

This will make more sense when I finish my motor, I plan on keeping the dist. while having the EDIS running so that I can compare the two performance wise.

Jon,

I know it "can" be done, but "should" it be done?

Oh, in that case, it shouldn't be done.


(I'm just trying to encourage you)

Hey Jon.....

I was down in SJ again tonight working on that truck, I wanted to call you to find out if you had brake pads for those M calipers....do you? if so....mind if I "borrow" them???


Progress is being made on my 914, all of the suspension is on the car, the only thing missing is the rear brake rotors, i need to redrill 'em.... I'm debating on if I'm going to install a rear swaybar on the car, right now to save time, I think i'll pass since welding and such would need to be done since it has no rear bar on it.

Do you still have a windshield? right now I don't care if it has any small chips, i'll be replacing it in the future when the car gets its cage.


Dave,

Why don't you like the wasted spark? Electromotive and just about everyone else uses it??

I don't have brake pads for the 5-lug stuff yet.

I do have a windshield that is in so-so shape. I plan to use it as a template to make a Lexan windshield for my car. You can put it in the white car if you want but if you break it then you bought it

Yep I think I'll chime in on this statment, Mike is 100% correct.

There's nothing wrong with the wasted spark system. Not only does most of the aftermarket FI use it, but also a large number of auto makers (mine are GM coils) use wasted spark.

Some guys act as if wasted spark ignition and batch fired FI is so low tech, and its not. Your MS is batch fired (two banks but it's still batch fired) right?

Looking for the sequential holy grail can be expensive, time consuming and the end result will be not worth it.

End of rant.

Mark and Mike

I was concerned about 2 things heat and possibly burning unburned fuel in the exhaust. I didn't know if that would happen so I thought I would like to try to waste that extra spark somewhere else. That turned into a big clusterf**k of wires in my garage that didn't accomplish anything. So, I'll try wasted spark.

Every once in a while I like to take a flyer, something different. Never tried to get mules to reproduce though.

On to something else. Hoe are youguys going to plug the hole for the dizzy? Are you going to remove the part of the shaft that engages the cam gear? Can you do that without splitting the case?

Dave

Dave, its very easy to remove the dizzy drive shaft without splitting the case.

Geoff

I cut the end off of an old dizzy and pluged it with a 3/8 NPT plug.

I never installed the drive when I put the case together. The drive does come out fairly easy but make sure the washer comes with it. If it doesn't you with have to fish it out with a magnet.

You can see it installed in this pic.

I put some ultra-black on the top edge to hold it in.