Distributorless Ignitions?
 

I know cars like the WRX come with non-coil ignition... was just wondering if you can convert over a honda dizzy to such a devise? I swear to god I saw something that controlled the plug wires by MSD but I when I actually wanted to buy it I can't find anything...I also remember it did not require a new ECU as it kept the dizzy on the engine and used it only for the sensors, but the coil was no longer used?

Re:Distributorless Ignitions?
 

You're touching a lot of things and mangling almost all of them. I'm gonna try to touch a few, and if anyone else feels the need to help or correct me, please do.

1. Coil-on-plug is a new(well not NEW NEW) technology where the coil is integrated with the plug. I think a lot of newer GMs use this, but I'm really not sure. Coil-on-plug is a good thing in general because it delivers strong sparks and divides the load among the number of plugs in the engine instead of placing all the discharge duties on one coil.

2. Distributorless Ignition Systems generally make use of a hall effect (magnetic) or optical sensor mounted on/near the flywheel. From these sensors, very accurate timing measurements can be made, and with some microcontroller wizardry, signals to generate ignition outputs can be made.

3. OBD0 and OBD1 hondas do not have suitable sensors on the flywheel from the factory. I seem to remember some weird crank angle sensor bullshit on a 96 Prelude when I was doing a swap with a friend, but I haven't really looked much at this. Conventional wisdom says that the ignitor is the weak link of the honda distributor. The consensus of some discussion over on PGMFI seemed to be that a first step to try prior to a full distributorless ignition would be to relocate both the coil AND the ignitor outside of the distributor housing so they would not be continually exposed to the head of the engine conducted through the head. MSD Cap + coils are an easy way to relocate the coil externally, and I believe Paul Davenport attempted to relocate the ignitor and mount it externally too - it's only a handful (5 I think) of wires. The honda distributor pickup signals could certainly be used with a custom-designed microcontroller DIS ignition system, but it would be very difficult to interface with the stock ECU. In such a situation, a full blown standalone would probably make more sense as the ignition and fuel would be controlled by two different pieces of electronics. Icky.

Hope that is a finger in the right direction
peace
-Dave

Re:Distributorless Ignitions?
 

Electromotive makes a stand-alone that comes with Distributor-less ignition I do believe. I've considered it myself.

Re:Distributorless Ignitions?
 

interesting; they have not touched alot on this in school yet - probably because its so new and specific to a few car companies at the moment.
It made more sense to me to have wires running directly without using a single coil... I mean your ignition would be stronger, and IGNITION would actually be more precise?

Thanks for your input, this is still something highly interesting to me - but I don't think I'll risk it on a Honda :)

Re:Distributorless Ignitions?
 

Honda outboard motors are based on their car motors and use crank-fire ignitions... of course you would have to be pretty imaginative to adapt one for automotive use ;D.