FINALLY...some decent mpgs

[86-lxi]

Just filled up and I got 25.6 mpg! That's the best I've gotten in a long time up until a week or two ago. I couldn't get over 22 no matter what I did.

Only thing different I did was accel coil and gapped and indexed my plugs (.050) so whoever says the coil or indexing your plugs doesn't do anything can shove it! (my dad said indexing won't do a thing):rolleyes:

P.S. I also set my base timing which came out to 2 degrees advanced with the vacuum lines hooked up. I'm thinking of going one more degree advanced to see if that helps more.

[RAZR]

nice, ive been getting between 25 and 27 mpg city

[lostforawhile]

it was probably from cleaning the plugs or replacing them whichever you did, I did a writeup on the coil, you actually lose performance near redline with a round coil, near redline in these cars, a round core style coil becomes saturated from the magnetic field, and it's ability to produce spark drops way off, the factory coils in these cars are a u shape core, that style of coil can produce maximum spark energy to well beyond the redline of our engines, the old round coils are fine for American cars with V8 engines, they don't have the same high rpm as our cars, but even in the domestic scene they are getting away from that style of coil as engine rpm keeps increasing. It's a dinosaur and they are on the way out. One of the things that is really hard to improve on in these cars is the ignition, a lot of Honda ignitions are so good, even the drag racers use Honda factory ignitions a lot of times.

[labeledsk8r]

Just filled up and I got 25.6 mpg! That's the best I've gotten in a long time up until a week or two ago. I couldn't get over 22 no matter what I did.

Only thing different I did was accel coil and gapped and indexed my plugs (.050) so whoever says the coil or indexing your plugs doesn't do anything can shove it! (my dad said indexing won't do a thing):rolleyes:

P.S. I also set my base timing which came out to 2 degrees advanced with the vacuum lines hooked up. I'm thinking of going one more degree advanced to see if that helps more.

good stuff, kinda shocked you over gapped the plugs, now adays with the up to 15% ethonal mixs out there you have to run a smaller gap to prevent detination, but if your not getting detination then go for it



it was probably from cleaning the plugs or replacing them whichever you did, I did a writeup on the coil, you actually lose performance near redline with a round coil, near redline in these cars, a round core style coil becomes saturated from the magnetic field, and it's ability to produce spark drops way off, the factory coils in these cars are a u shape core, that style of coil can produce maximum spark energy to well beyond the redline of our engines, the old round coils are fine for American cars with V8 engines, they don't have the same high rpm as our cars, but even in the domestic scene they are getting away from that style of coil as engine rpm keeps increasing. It's a dinosaur and they are on the way out. One of the things that is really hard to improve on in these cars is the ignition, a lot of Honda ignitions are so good, even the drag racers use Honda factory ignitions a lot of times.

i have yet to see technical proof of what your saying is true, i mean companys have done test on intake filters why not this? second thing im sorry but a 3gs redline is not high at all its like what 6800? and even if it did drop slightly the difrence in voltages from stock to aftermarket is enough to make up for it, msd blaster 2 voltage output 45,000 volts accel super stock round coil 39,000, brand new oem 3g coil i belive was rated around the 28-29,000 volt line so even if the voltage drops id doubt it ever drop under what even astock coil can. and finaly if a car has had a stock coil in them for this long its most likely lost some of its voltage, i know both of my 3g's had bad coils and they didnt even have over 200k. so in note, get proof with real data

[Civic Accord Honda]

i have yet to see technical proof of what your saying is true, i mean companys have done test on intake filters why not this? second thing im sorry but a 3gs redline is not high at all its like what 6800? and even if it did drop slightly the difrence in voltages from stock to aftermarket is enough to make up for it, msd blaster 2 voltage output 45,000 volts accel super stock round coil 39,000, brand new oem 3g coil i belive was rated around the 28-29,000 volt line so even if the voltage drops id doubt it ever drop under what even astock coil can. and finaly if a car has had a stock coil in them for this long its most likely lost some of its voltage, i know both of my 3g's had bad coils and they didnt even have over 200k. so in note, get proof with real data

+ 1 on this, first off your a lttle off on the voltages msd is 50,000 volts and accel is 45,000 volts,

i have had an accel superstock on 2 different cars that both had the stock 3gee style coils, one was my 3gees and when i switched to the accel i noticed much more response and i felt a power increase all the way to rev limiter, and the other was on my legend and i noticed a huge difference on that also

also saying honda builds the best ignitions makes me laugh, 90% of the time you see a honda broken down its due to a bad ignitor , coil or distributor in general

[86-lxi]

it was probably from cleaning the plugs or replacing them whichever you did, I did a writeup on the coil, you actually lose performance near redline with a round coil, near redline in these cars, a round core style coil becomes saturated from the magnetic field, and it's ability to produce spark drops way off, the factory coils in these cars are a u shape core, that style of coil can produce maximum spark energy to well beyond the redline of our engines, the old round coils are fine for American cars with V8 engines, they don't have the same high rpm as our cars, but even in the domestic scene they are getting away from that style of coil as engine rpm keeps increasing. It's a dinosaur and they are on the way out. One of the things that is really hard to improve on in these cars is the ignition, a lot of Honda ignitions are so good, even the drag racers use Honda factory ignitions a lot of times.

I didn't clean the plugs, they weren't that old to start with, even so I was getting about 21 with new plugs, wires, cap and rotor etc.

[lostforawhile]

good stuff, kinda shocked you over gapped the plugs, now adays with the up to 15% ethonal mixs out there you have to run a smaller gap to prevent detination, but if your not getting detination then go for it




i have yet to see technical proof of what your saying is true, i mean companys have done test on intake filters why not this? second thing im sorry but a 3gs redline is not high at all its like what 6800? and even if it did drop slightly the difrence in voltages from stock to aftermarket is enough to make up for it, msd blaster 2 voltage output 45,000 volts accel super stock round coil 39,000, brand new oem 3g coil i belive was rated around the 28-29,000 volt line so even if the voltage drops id doubt it ever drop under what even astock coil can. and finaly if a car has had a stock coil in them for this long its most likely lost some of its voltage, i know both of my 3g's had bad coils and they didnt even have over 200k. so in note, get proof with real data
it's called hysterisis effect, on round coils it acts like a big inductor, that style of coil will start dropping voltage quickly past about 6000 rpm, it's just the basic design of the coil style, there's not much that can be done about it, it's old technology, most new coils out now have a U shaped or an E shaped core, this is due to the way the magnetic lines of force act on that style, it doesn't become magnetically saturated as easy. There is nothing to prove about round coil dropping voltage at higher RPM's it's just basic electrical theory, in order to produce a spark, the magnetic field in the coil has to collapse, this induces the high voltage in the secondary winding, this is what produces your spark. as the rpm's increase, the coil becomes saturated magnetically and the coil field doesn't have a chance to collapse, it just stays magnetized, this is whats called hysteris effect. The old round coils by design are much more prone to this, then more modern style coils with the E shaped or U shaped cores. the core design on these are designed to help cancel out this effect. as far as companies testing this, they are all moving more towards the newer style coils now, most of the old style round coils you see are going on old cars where they work fine, and also have a certain look people are looking for

[lostforawhile]

+ 1 on this, first off your a lttle off on the voltages msd is 50,000 volts and accel is 45,000 volts,

i have had an accel superstock on 2 different cars that both had the stock 3gee style coils, one was my 3gees and when i switched to the accel i noticed much more response and i felt a power increase all the way to rev limiter, and the other was on my legend and i noticed a huge difference on that also

also saying honda builds the best ignitions makes me laugh, 90% of the time you see a honda broken down its due to a bad ignitor , coil or distributor in general

if you want to talk about bad ignitions, look at the other cars in this same era, even modern cars, the ignition systems in these cars are extremely reliable, most f the time the ignitor units that fail are cheap aftermarket replacements, I have ignitors that are still fine that have over 3-400000 miles on them, you aren't old enough to remember when ignition systems tearing up was a very common thing, if you had a chrysler from this era, you probably had a spare ignition module in the trunk, or a couple of them

[lostforawhile]

there's another factor to consider, the E style coils, may produce the same voltage, but they also produce more current, on a canister style coil there's a compromise between higher voltages and higher current there are other factors as well, here's a really good article on this, it's on a Vette forum but it's the same info. http://www.corvettefever.com/techarticles/ignition_coil_info/index.html

[86-lxi]

good stuff, kinda shocked you over gapped the plugs, now adays with the up to 15% ethonal mixs out there you have to run a smaller gap to prevent detination, but if your not getting detination then go for it

I actually tried going lower(.043-.045)but I lost power and response, tried .049 and .051 and seems like .050 is the sweet spot. Different story when I had the stock coil though .050 would be way too big.

[lostforawhile]

I took a side picture of the factory coil, most people don't look at it very close, but you can very clearly see the E type coil. The problem with switching coils, is the ignition system was designed to use this type of coil, if you go to a canister type of coil you are losing spark current. You can put in a good ignition box between the dizzy and the coil, but most of them also require this style of coil. If you think about it, when this car came out, most cars came with a canister coil, and a bulky ignition box, this was very high tech to use this type of coil and ignition in 86, it's not dated at all, it's still considered a very good ignition system today.
the factory coil side view
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b205/moultriemanicmechanic/IM000483.jpg
now this is the Mallory E style coil side view
http://image.corvettefever.com/f/techarticles/9212001+w200/corp_061100_04_z+ignition_coil_tech+e_model_heat_s ink.jpg

[labeledsk8r]

lol just becuse it looks like an e type doenst make it one. in fact even in your little artical it listed how the E type takes advantage of outer cooling ridges to disperse heat, wich is a side product of amprage, i know very well the conversion of volts and amps and that one is useless without the other and is a very delicate line.

i find it funny you post tons of useless pics but no real data, you read one thing and belive it and force it upon others, lol you must be a religous type.

untill i see side by sides of stock vs e coils vs canisters vs everytihng else nothing really stands.

you have a stock coil compairing it to a purpose built aftermarket coil

we have stated both our sides yet you have posted like 6 replys in this mans thread, he is happy about getting better mpgs outa his car, he never said he wanted to rev to reline, a more voltage less amprage causes more spark wich is a better burn so even if somehow your 100% correct about everytihng your still shiting on the mans thread as what he used works for HIS aplication

ot my bad for shitting on your thread aswell

[Hauntd ca3]

not meaning to go off topic, but of al the honda ign systems i've seen with dead modules, the one thing they all have in common is they all have a massive plug gap.
have never seen a honda with properly gapped plugs kill a module.
and with a 45,000 volt coil, a small gap will squash the spark and render it no better than a stock coil.
i didnt think that was right until i saw a holden commodore which run 50,000+ volt coil packs run like a bag of arseholes ( eg missing and hunting ) because the gaps were of the "normal to old school guys" .040 .
opened them up to factory specced .060 and it ran sweet all because the spark was being squashed up in to small of a gap.

[lostforawhile]

lol just becuse it looks like an e type doenst make it one. in fact even in your little artical it listed how the E type takes advantage of outer cooling ridges to disperse heat, wich is a side product of amprage, i know very well the conversion of volts and amps and that one is useless without the other and is a very delicate line.

i find it funny you post tons of useless pics but no real data, you read one thing and belive it and force it upon others, lol you must be a religous type.

untill i see side by sides of stock vs e coils vs canisters vs everytihng else nothing really stands.

you have a stock coil compairing it to a purpose built aftermarket coil

we have stated both our sides yet you have posted like 6 replys in this mans thread, he is happy about getting better mpgs outa his car, he never said he wanted to rev to reline, a more voltage less amprage causes more spark wich is a better burn so even if somehow your 100% correct about everytihng your still shiting on the mans thread as what he used works for HIS aplication

ot my bad for shitting on your thread aswell
if you can't see the e style coil in the picture you are blind. it's plain as day, it's just potted into an epoxy case to protect the entire thing from vibration. someone needs to cut a bad one in half, i'm not cutting up a good coil.

[2oodoor]

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/ignition_coil_tech/index.html

gospel according to the book of petersons

[2ndGenGuy]

^^ Interesting, now I understand a bit more what the MSD boxes do. It did seem to read a bit like an MSD ad about half way through, but I'm sure the theory can all be applied to other CD ignition systems, assuming anybody else makes them that are any good.

Also, lost, you have no idea which Accel coil the OP is running. You're going off on a tangent about possibly nothing. Simmer down a little bit there.

[Vanilla Sky]

Not only will the canister coil be fine in our application, I think any new coil will be an improvement over a 20+ year old coil.

Remember, we fire half as many plugs per rev than a V8 has to. Sure, a can coil may have issues taking a V8 up to 7,000 RPM, but taking our engines up to 7,000 RPM is like taking a V8 up to 3,500 RPM.

I'm betting that the main reason fuel econ was bad in this case is that the old ignition parts were faulty, either the coil or the spark plugs. More than likely the coil, due to heat and age. I've had several of these stock coils fail on me, it's nothing new.

86-LXi, did you change anything else when you changed the coil and plugs? Different grade of fuel, different fuel station? I do see that you changed timing, so that may have something to do with it as well, and I'm betting it does.

[86-lxi]

lol just becuse it looks like an e type doenst make it one. in fact even in your little artical it listed how the E type takes advantage of outer cooling ridges to disperse heat, wich is a side product of amprage, i know very well the conversion of volts and amps and that one is useless without the other and is a very delicate line.

i find it funny you post tons of useless pics but no real data, you read one thing and belive it and force it upon others, lol you must be a religous type.

untill i see side by sides of stock vs e coils vs canisters vs everytihng else nothing really stands.

you have a stock coil compairing it to a purpose built aftermarket coil

we have stated both our sides yet you have posted like 6 replys in this mans thread, he is happy about getting better mpgs outa his car, he never said he wanted to rev to reline, a more voltage less amprage causes more spark wich is a better burn so even if somehow your 100% correct about everytihng your still shiting on the mans thread as what he used works for HIS aplication

ot my bad for shitting on your thread aswell

No problem lol I would have to agree, I drive pretty conservative now that i'm getting older, 10 years ago I'd care what my car does at redline but at this point in time all I really care about is a good performance/mpg mix. I'm getting there:thumbup:

[86-lxi]

Not only will the canister coil be fine in our application, I think any new coil will be an improvement over a 20+ year old coil.

Remember, we fire half as many plugs per rev than a V8 has to. Sure, a can coil may have issues taking a V8 up to 7,000 RPM, but taking our engines up to 7,000 RPM is like taking a V8 up to 3,500 RPM.

I'm betting that the main reason fuel econ was bad in this case is that the old ignition parts were faulty, either the coil or the spark plugs. More than likely the coil, due to heat and age. I've had several of these stock coils fail on me, it's nothing new.

86-LXi, did you change anything else when you changed the coil and plugs? Different grade of fuel, different fuel station? I do see that you changed timing, so that may have something to do with it as well, and I'm betting it does.

No nothing but the timing and indexing the plugs, I already had new plugs, wires and new cap and rotor in and I still got 21 mpg

[ecogabriel]

I actually tried going lower(.043-.045)but I lost power and response, tried .049 and .051 and seems like .050 is the sweet spot. Different story when I had the stock coil though .050 would be way too big.

maybe the old coil was already worn; I replaced the one on my Civic (it died) and I noticed the car being a little more responsive. Not a whole lot (it's a D15 engine) but the difference was there.
I noticed more difference on even older cars using mechanical distributors (yeah, I'm older than dirt!) In those cars, new plugs and new coil made a lot of difference.

[2oodoor]

No nothing but the timing and indexing the plugs, I already had new plugs, wires and new cap and rotor in and I still got 21 mpg

You could try a hotter thermostat, like anything over and above 160 , they can go as high as 190.. . Make sure the air is bleed out of the coolant .
the idea is to shorten the enrichening.

[86-lxi]

I'm at 28.28 Mpg's Highway (first tank), safe to say I'm happy with that, it's set at 14 degrees BTDC. Finally got it dialed in :eek5:

[Vanilla Sky]

That's really not bad at all with an automatic.

Every engine likes a different amount of ignition advance. Most tuners set the ignition timing at the best for power. It can vary by several degrees, even on the same make, model, and year of car. You seem to have found a good setting, and now that you've measured it, can return to it in case you need to pull your distributor.

[Demon1024]

you mpg changed cause of resetting the timing. It will make huge differences in gas consumption