I hear of guys on other car forums adding some super magnets, gluing them on the spinning part of the distributor to make the signal stronger for the ignition system. Has anyone tried this? do you have any details such as what polarity and how many? I'm rebuilding a spare Dist for a friend and adding a nice heat sink under the module mount point like I talked about a few years ago and was looking for what Others have done for improvements.. The stronger magnet makes some sense to me, the magnets in our cars distributors are low grade to begin with and are over 20 years old...

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Best RV, Camper, and Trailer dealer in West Michigan. http://www.cliffstrailersales.com and he's a fiero owner too!

you are assuming there is a direct relationship to power output from trigger input. there isn't. the module makes the drive to the coil and it is soley triggered on the event input. it is a schmidtt triggered input, and the only gain is making a faster transitional pulse to the module. This can be attained just as well by setting proper spacing on the pickup coil tangs and the spikes on the magnet.
On the other hand, you have to considier that the 20 year old heat soaked magnet has lost some power, so a replacemenmt might be in order, but I really don't believe doubling the magent will helpany more that a single healthy normal magnet will.
just MHO

Here ya go.

http://www.westcoastfieros....?TID=1617&PN=1&TPN=2

What I am after is a cleaner pulse signal for the coil to send to the module. The magnets on a stock Dist are garbage to begin with, a compass barely notices that they are there. I'm just thinking that a stronger pulse to the Ign module will reduce the possibility of a misfire due to not seeing a pulse.

What I am after is trying to make sure I dont get a problem 600 miles from home in the middle of a desert and a band of renegades driving me down trying to take my gasoline mad-max style....

Ok, Wife bought me the MadMax box set for christmas... so the last part is unrealistic..

Now, to get DAWG to produce those heatsink housings for public consumption.

Norm

[This message has been edited by gt88norm (edited 12-25-2009).]

I think that your over anylizing this whole thing, those pickup coils work just fine. One thing i have learned over the years is that GM makes the best igniton systems in the world. they are almost built proof and as you yourself have stated they last forever. Now since you have it apart i would agree its time to replace the pickup coil and the module just on principles. but i have never seen a GM pickup coil go bad, modules yes and i always replace the coil at the same time just to make sure that its not spiking the module. but the magnets that they use work just fine i think that its waste of time to try and reinvent the wheel on this one.

My 2 cents
Ant

You are correct, the module doesn't really react to the pickup's output level. The purpose of the added magnets is to keep the output over the bottom threshold. I have measured several distributors now where the magnet was so weak it couldn't trigger the igntion module anymore.

So, in basic terms, the magnets won't give you a better spark, they'll just make sure you continue to get a spark at all.

DG

quote Originally posted by tjm4fun: you are assuming there is a direct relationship to power output from trigger input. there isn't. the module makes the drive to the coil and it is soley triggered on the event input. it is a schmidtt triggered input, and the only gain is making a faster transitional pulse to the module. This can be attained just as well by setting proper spacing on the pickup coil tangs and the spikes on the magnet. On the other hand, you have to considier that the 20 year old heat soaked magnet has lost some power, so a replacemenmt might be in order, but I really don't believe doubling the magent will helpany more that a single healthy normal magnet will. just MHO

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You Dream it Up -- I'll Build it

quote Originally posted by Dawg: Frankly, you are doing what everyone with any experience seems to do regarding this particular ignition system. Replace on principle. I wonder why? DG

i just figure that if you have it apart then replace it and save some labor down the road. But like i said i have seen very few problems with them, i have run much older ones the these fiero ones with no problems. i have own several GTOs and have used the HEI distributers in most of them without any issues even at high rpm. i never replaced the pick up coil in any of them and they stopped making the pontiac motor in 78 so te have more miles and age and still work fine. Also for the most part until GM went DIS on it vehicle they really didn't change their dist design a whole lot other then going to computer control on them, so if for 25 years or so they worked fine why does it need to be reenginered?

Ant

[This message has been edited by Ants87gt (edited 12-26-2009).]