I bought this 93 mustang off of a fellow tech member a few months ago and
i did not get to here the car run due to the tranny being out of the car. I tried to get the car fired up once I get it home and I have no spark coming out of the ignition box. For those of you who are familiar with these units, they are fairly simple. There is only 4 wires other than the stock connector plugs, A power, ground, tach wire and a 12 volt signal for timing retard.
Well, I have power and ground to the box and the tach wire is hook up but I still have no spark coming from the box.

I sent it back to MSD to get checked out and they said it was OK. So I hooked it up again and still no spark. I checked the wiring harness to make sure it was not damaged anywhere, it was OK also.

Can anyone tell me anything else to try??

MSD said to get a PC hook up and check for engine rpms while cranking. I'm going to try this as soon as I can get a PC over to my shop.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Does your 12V source keep voltage when you are in the cranking position? Some sources will loose power when the switch goes to the start position and get it back when the key goes back to run.

 

I believe it is keeping 12v power, I hooked it directly to the starter solenoid and tried that with no luck. That is getting power straight off the battery. I even tried on of the pre programmed chips it comes with, still nothing.

Also to rule out the crank sensor, I took the one from my camaro and put it in there and still nothing.

 

All I can think of, is try hooking the groung wire straight to the ground post on the battery and try that. That will eliminate the possibility of a bad ground. If it has power in run, start, and a good ground, it should work.

 

I will try this tomorrow night. Thanks for the advice...

 

Well I tried re connecting the ground wire to the block and the block has two ground straps. I hooked the power wire directly to the starter sylinoid were the battery wire is connected. I also hook jumper cables to the ground on the battery and connected it to the block. No luck.

I also hooked a laptop up to the msd box and it is not showing any rpm's durring cranking, or anything for that matter.

I'm going to check the groung wire coming off of the crank sensor next.

 

I'm assuming the reason for the sale may have involved this other person's inability to properly set up the car. As much as it sucks, I would go back over every single bit of wiring on the whole motor (as well as the entire rest of the car). I only trust my life to my own potential screw-ups, not someone else's. If someone missed a bit of wiring, who are you to trust that all of the bolts are torqued properly? Then again, I'm a bit paranoid about the unknown.

 

It has to do with the crank sensor since you don't have rpms while cranking. What crank is in the car? stock size? last year my buddy and another guy that i know (Tosto Racing) tried to carb a big cubed LS1 and the MSD box doesn't pick the crank signal up. Tried EVERYTHING nothing worked both of them sold the motors. It has been a known problem with MSD. It is even posted on MSD troubleshooting website i believe. The MSD box will only work with a stock size crank. I haven't heard of anyone getting it to work on a bigger crank. If you have a stock size crank disregard what i said and recheck the crank signal.

 

If you are talking about stroker cranks I am running a 3.9" 24x crank and it works fine. I also wonder if the reluctor wheel could have moved which would wreck havoc with the crank signal.

 

I read the post about Tosto's trouble with the box, but I have to wonder. If the starter is turning the flywheel, and reluctor wheel, the same speed as it would on a stock stroke engine, then it should fire. If the box would'nt fire the stroker engine, then most likely it's not going to fire a stocker either. Maybe both engines needed a stronger, and faster, starter.

 

Bingo! It was to slow of a cranking speed. After all the **** I've been through, I checked the sensor ground on the crank it was ok. I was on the phone tonight with msd going through everything. And they said to pull the plugs to let the motor spin faster, the box needs at least 230 rpm's to pick up the signal. So when I pulled the plugs it started to show 180 to 190 rpm's on the laptop and the coils were jumping off. So it was not turning the motor fast enough.
I put the plugs and wires back in and hooked a charger on the battery and put it on boost/start and it wanted to go but still would not start. I gave up for the night after that. I also cooked the battery, it was boiling over.

At least I know what the problem is now. I am going to get a new and bigger battery tomorrow. I also think I need a starter that will turn the motor faster. Were and what should I get???? A mini starter? My buddy has one on his ls1 and he says it spins the **** out of his motor

 

thats pretty interesting, the fact it needs a certain engine speed to make it work-cold weather and thick oil could really give guys a fit
something else i have to file in the back of my mind, and its getting full-lol
thanks for posting this info

 

Yes this is something that needs to be put on file for the next guy that is trying to get on of these things fired up. I'm going to put my optima battery in it out of my camaro to see if that will start it up.

 

hey JR use a 78 series size battery, with the biggest CCA you can find, along with a POWERMASTER mini torque starter #9509 if you want. That will spin the motor over damn fast.

 

Thanks for the info man. Were can I find one of these starters? I'm taking the optima from my car over there to my shop and trying that. It is a 910 CA battery. You think that will do?

 

We just installed one of these 6LS boxes in our 2000 formula 408 stroker race car using the optional harness for the factory fuel injection.We wasted a week trying to get the car started(never had a problem before).Tried different timing plots etc and nothing would work.We really only wanted to use the box for the two step function but you are forced to use the msd timing.We are removing the harness and the box and will use a Lingenfelter rev controller.Too much BS with this box.

Ray T

 

I just checked jegs and they have the powermaster 9509 starter for $217 they also make some kick *** battery's. I will wait to see itf I'm going to need one of those. I'm going to play with the battery's first.

 

Tosto Racing tried going to a bigger battery when he was trying to get his to start. and that didn't help out and i belive he had a different starter also. since you fried your battery i wold get a new one but also invest in a starter right away. Good luck

 

Sorry to say ,but that box and msd is the biggest piece of **** I 've ever seen. If you do figure it out I'd love to know.

I even had a 16 volt battery hooked up and it wouldn't work I could go on and on about my dealings ,but we'd be here all night Msd told me to do everything you are doing and nothing worked.

I hope you can figure it out because everyone I knew was pulling there hair out!!


I made a post while ago in the drag racing tech section if you care to search for it.

 

Houston, we have ignition! I got the bitch started today!!!!!! Bout ******* time.
I'm not real sure what the problem ended up being as we changed several things at once and it started sparking.
1. I hooked the power and ground straight to the optima battery. We had it so juiced it was starting to boil.
2. I put the original crank sensor back in. I don't think this had anything to do with it.
3. We put my starter in it out of the camaro.

I think the starter could have been causing "noise" so my man said. He has seen this problem with nissan's with the crank sensor next to the starter. If the starter has any problems with in it, like the winding's or dragging at all, it makes signal noise which the CS will pick up causing spastic signal in the sensor. In this case a new starter fixed the problem. But my father and I had it firing last night with the other starter, so this might not be it!

It would not run off of the gas in the tank, it was old and smelled bad. I pumped all of it out and went to my house and got 5 gallons of 110 octane, put that in and primed it up to the carb. It popped right off and fired up with a little help of either.

We ran it for about 15 minutes to check the oil pressure and other vitals. The motor ran very well. I should of taken a video of it running. But I was so excited it was running I didn't think about it.

We were standing there bull shitting, I started disconnecting everything, next thing you know I have the motor ready to come out. We went ahead and pulled it. It's on the floor now.

I'm glad I took it out in stead of running it like it was, when we pulled it the right side mount got hung up because they are welded directly to the K member, and it ripped the plate right off of the cm tube that is welded to the K member. Now I know why you don't mig cm tubing!!!!!


All in all I think it something to do with either the starter or wiring to power and ground to the battery. When I got it fired, it was only using the optima battery with no charger on it. So I'm still not clear on what it was.... I'm just glad it's running now, or was. We'll see what happens when the 383 goes in. I'll have the whole car re wired then.