Accuspark Black box adjustable advance curve

[miked]

Just seen this. No connection to me. Has anybody tried one yet?
Looks pretty nifty being able to laptop program on a dizzy with existing electronic ignition. Not mega bucks either. Looks like it just drops in series and the weights are locked down.

http://www.accuspark.co.uk/Blackbox.htm



Mike

[billwill]

Very interesting.

There is a 123ignition unit that does the same sort of thing and is all built into a distributor, but this black box can use your existing one.

The videos on the website are good and show you how to lock your distributor by replacing the springs with stainless locking wire. The videos also give a good tutorial (effectively) about dwell angle, but the videos do seem to run out of steam a bit on showing how to adjust the actual advance curve, perhaps they will produce a more comprehensive video later.

[miked]

Yes Bill I watched them. I thought there would be a bit more at that mapping section. I agree the dwell bit was great. I am going to ring in the morning. I think this may be my birthday present.

Mike

[billwill]

If you still have points, don't forget to order the points replacement bits to go in the distributor, as well.

[TroonSprint]

Alcon, who make the Ignitor contact-less system, are also making a fully programmable kit. See here www.aldonamethyst.co.uk.

Mike

[peterako]

Interesting product and at a fraction of the 123 one.....

Very tempting.....

Peter

[peterako]

Well my powers of resistance lasted exactly 26 hours....

Ordered today.....will report back when installed.

Peter

[billwill]

Well my powers of resistance lasted exactly 26 hours....

Ordered today.....will report back when installed.

Peter

Now you only need a race track or a rolling road or an uninhabited good road where you can do timed tests at different RPM to set up the ideal advance curves.

[miked]

Well done Peter, you beat me to it. I have their Dizzy and Rev limiter and their Customer service seems great. Mike

[Pistacchio sprint 72]

I have the 123 ignition system on my caterham which is powered by a 1600 ford kent crossflow.
Very nice piece of kit.
I somehow copied curves i could find from fast roads dizzy. I never went yet yo s rolling road and was too lazy to do the testing on road to measure optimum results.
The built in rev limiter that you can adjust at the same time as the curve is very handy.
Mine can switch between two curves by the flip of a switch hidden under my dashboard

[jimj]

Yes, as Bill implies, having adjustable advance curves is of no benefit without the means to be able to reliably and consistently test the results. I can`t imagine that this is realistically possible without a rolling road.
"make it adjustable and..........." !
Jim

[peterako]

My first, and main, task is to set the curve to that in the Miles Wilkins book for my car

At present I have a 45D with too aggressive an advance.

The Cut-out is a bonus!

When funds allow I'll get to a rolling road.....

Will report back when I get it installed.

Peter

[billwill]

About a million years ago when I was an Engineering undergrad at University College London, I remember that one of our practical exercises in the lab was taking measurement while running an engine at different revs etc with a huge disk brake as a load, which itself supported a hanging plate of weights and a spring balance for the fine part of the load figures. The engine was complete with a flat disk spun by either the crankshaft or the camshaft (I forgot which) and a needle that moved radially according to instant chamber pressure. We had to candle-smoke up the disk before a run and the needle would draw a pressure-volume diagram in the smudge. Great fun.

And I expect our Colin Chapman had done the self same tests on the self same engine because he did his engineering degree at that same college about 2 million years ago. And it was a big old tough engine built to last forever.

[peterako]

OK.....

Received my BlackBox and a locked Distributor from Accuspark a few weeks ago and finally got around to installing it on Wednesday.

Spent a few hours doingt this.

Change distributor - I connected wires as usual to allow for testing the distributor.
Set up static timing, start and adjust. (Longs story here but will spare the details)

All fine and done in about 30 mins....

Temporarily connected the Stealth and started with default settings.

Fine.

Set up 41189 advance and cut out at 6750, left the Dwell at defaults but will change today to Workshop Manual 60.
(Very long story and some calls to Tony at Accuspark helped a lot....some tips below)

Then wired in the box 'permantly in my glove compartment.....actually found stuff that was in there since I bought it years ago so I wasn't really using it properly

This took the rest of the few hours!

Went for a quick spin today.

Well it works but there seem to be some niggles which I'll investigate, along with performance, further this weekend.

Have planned a few days away with the wife and a few hundred miles....bringing the 'old' dizzy and a timing light along just in case

Peter

Tips:

The set up of the Black Box took so long as my Laptop did not seem to update the box when I hit 'Load'.
It's a Windows 7 64 machine.
When my wife got home I 'borrowed' her XP laptop and hey presto...updates/changes in seconds!

Set your static timing as per manual, or maybe -2 degrees.
Eg. for mine I set it to 8 instead of 10 and the FixAdvance to 1 (but may revisit).

The FixAdvance degrees setting in the Blackbox is at DISTRIBUTOR.

The other RPM and Degree settings are at CRANK.

'Niggles' (Could be due to anything....only time will tell):

Noticed the Rev Counter Needle fly from about 5500 to 7000 when accelerating hard. Will watch on trip west.

[peterako]

Ok....have put about 240 miles on the Black Box....and it performed well.

Soon after writing the Niggles comments in my previous post I had a look at the wiring in my engine bay and discovered that a HT lead (Cyl 4?) was touching the coil top.

Have moved this away and 'jumping' rev counter niggle solved.

Set the static advance in the Black Box to 2 (so 4 degrees at crank + 8 I'd set up = 12) and headed off.

Car ran ok, but there was a hole every now and then at 2900/3000.

Then, about 40 miles from jouney's start, we got a puncture (of course in the only rain shower we saw all weekend)...and somehow I ended up with two Hankook's on the back of the car.
I have another thread from a few years ago where I mentioned that I found that having Hankooks on the read of the car made the care handle like it was on ice.....well.....welcome back icy driving again

Didn't have the time or equipment to put them on the front (where they don't seem to affect the car in the same way).....

So, it was hard to experience/concentrate on the ignition much after that.

I DID notice some kick back on starting the car the next day so put fixed advance back to 1 degree on the Black Box (so 10 at crank...). Some improvement.

When I got home I checked timing with the light and found that I actually had 12 degrees at the crank, so now the Black Box is back to 0 fixed advance....and I went out for a blast....lovely.....though ran out of steam at 6000.

I had been messing with my carbs to get the car to work well with the old distributor so may have to revisit them.

Also, starting to mess with the advance curve....which is so easy with this piece of kit

So, cannot fault the Stealth Black Box yet

Will update with my experiences as appropriate.

Peter