A buddy and me are in the prosses of swaping in a 13b in to his Limited Edition. He would like to go the route of 4 independent coils. We are haveing a hard time trying to figure out how to hook-up the leading coils. There is only one wire going from the ECU to leading coils. The motor is out of an 88 with the ECU and wiring harness. does anyone have an idea on how to hook it up for two seperate leading coils or has done this themselves. I could really use the advise.

 

You'd need to fabricate you own ignition plate...and have an ignitor for each leading coil...just split the signal and run it to both ignitors



But really you'd only need 3 coils...theres not going to be much gas to burn in trailing with dual leading coils going



look back a bit at the "DLIDFIS" articles...theres lots of info there...as well as pictures



I'm not sure if it would be totally the same since you're using an ECU...but i'm assuming it wouldn't be much different

 

Trailing isn't worth upgrading in my humble opinion. Three coils is an awesome way to go (DLIDFIS). Otherwise, just use FC stuff since you already have the ECU. It'll still be three coils, but in a different setup, and it's even direct fire.

 

Jeff ~

isn't the FC stuff compatible with DLIDFIS? i could have sworn you said somewhere (can't remember where) that you felt the FC coils were a great way to go. maybe i'm smokin' ...



if i can get my hands on some FC coils, i was planning to cram on the DLIDFIS threads and wire it up over the holidays ...

 

DLIDFIS, as you know (or will soon) stands for Dual Leading Ignitor Direct Fire Ignition System. It uses two ignitors and two coils; one for each leading plug. The FC stuff, on the other hand, is typically hooked up with one leading coil (and the stock ballast resistor in the base assembly) and only one J-109 ignitor. It's a DIS coil which has two high tension outputs. It's commonly refered to as 2GCDFIS, which stands for 2nd Gen Coil Direct Fire Ignition System. An MSD can also be used with it, which easily enough is refered to as MSD-DIS (it's actually a better way to get spark compared to hooking an MSD to two seperate coils, as the older tutorials suggest).



The only way that DLIDFIS would be compatible with FC stuff is if you were to use both trailing coils as leading coils. It would of course require two ignitors; one hooked to each coil, and then on to each leading plug. FC coils are an E-core type which is a more efficient design than the oil filled style 1st gens have. I suspect FC trailing coils could be used fine with DLIDFIS. It might be a good idea to get a couple GM HEI ignitors as well.

 

pardon the ignorance, but what are HEI ignitors and which GM cars would i have to look for?



by the way, i was reading about someone's car and they said they were using LT1 coils - i'm assuming this is the Corvette LT1 - do they have HEI ignitors?



thanks

 

have you ever heard of these? if so, what do you think?



Petronix ignitors

 

HEI = high energy ignition (I think). They were found on GM cars from lagte '70s to early '80s (I think). 4 pin is the style you want because 7 pin needs an ECU (I think).



I wouldn't bother with pertronix because they're intended for points dizzies.

 

i've been doing some research in the meantime, so i think i found out that HEI means Hall Effect Ignitor or Ignition.



okay, i guess the Petronix link may be useful for those who have the pre-1981 distributors and want to do DLIDFIS. so i'ts not all for naught.



i got one confirmation on the 1982 Chevy Nova as a GM source. i'll look into others while i conduct my searches for more info. incidentally, i read where someone used an ignitor from a Ford Escort 1.6 (1982 - but it's a foreign model and i'm not sure if the US models were the same)



thanks Jeff

 

Well in my case I used a second gen leading coil and fired the trailing through the distributor cap. And if you need a set of J109's I have a pair I would be willing to part with for about $30.



PM me.



P.S. I also have a couple of electronic distributors I could assemble for you cheap. $10+s&h