The 1947 - Present Chevrolet & GMC Truck Message Board Network - View Single Post - MSD 6AL-2 PROGRAMMABLE Ignition Control in a Squarebody, say what?

**Gregski** · 01-06-2019, 12:16 PM

In my opinion the High Energy Ignition (H.E.I.) as it is called should be called the All-In-One ignition and here's why.

In one box, or in one self contained aparatus we get all these things:

distributor
ignition
coil

no extra spark plug wire to run to the coil which needs to be strapped to the engine block somewhere or on the firewall, no extra electrical wires to run to the external ignition box mounted on the inner fender somewhere, you get the idea

Now let's review what's the job of the distributor (a stand alone distributor or just the distributor part of our HEI)

It is to do two things:

1. report to the ignition the crank position. Say what? The ignition needs to know where the piston is at as it travels up and down. The piston is moved up and down by the crank, so the crank position correlates to the piston position, but let's not geek out too much. Bro, the distributor is driven by the cam not the crank. Yes, but the timing chain joins the crank sprocket to the cam sprocket. So the crank signals the cam via the timing set, then the cam signals the distributor via it's shaft, and that signal goes to the reluctor?, etc.

dude you lost me but whatever, yes this is inefficient and that's why on modern cars they have something called the Crank Position Sensor. but that's getting off topic

2. the second job of the distributor is to get the orders from the ignition when to fire the spark and tell the coil to fire

sorry, had to get all that out of the way

01-06-2019, 12:16 PM	#12
Gregski Post Whore Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 10,803	Re: MSD 6AL-2 PROGRAMMABLE Ignition Control in a Squarebody, say what? In my opinion the High Energy Ignition (H.E.I.) as it is called should be called the All-In-One ignition and here's why. In one box, or in one self contained aparatus we get all these things: distributor ignition coil no extra spark plug wire to run to the coil which needs to be strapped to the engine block somewhere or on the firewall, no extra electrical wires to run to the external ignition box mounted on the inner fender somewhere, you get the idea Now let's review what's the job of the distributor (a stand alone distributor or just the distributor part of our HEI) It is to do two things: 1. report to the ignition the crank position. Say what? The ignition needs to know where the piston is at as it travels up and down. The piston is moved up and down by the crank, so the crank position correlates to the piston position, but let's not geek out too much. Bro, the distributor is driven by the cam not the crank. Yes, but the timing chain joins the crank sprocket to the cam sprocket. So the crank signals the cam via the timing set, then the cam signals the distributor via it's shaft, and that signal goes to the reluctor?, etc. dude you lost me but whatever, yes this is inefficient and that's why on modern cars they have something called the Crank Position Sensor. but that's getting off topic 2. the second job of the distributor is to get the orders from the ignition when to fire the spark and tell the coil to fire sorry, had to get all that out of the way Last edited by Gregski; 01-06-2019 at 01:38 PM.