"123" Programmable electronic ignition

[Volvo Canadian]

Hi - I seem to be laying down the threads here -

Here's another one. Been thinking about electronic ignition, weighing all of the pros and cons, reading lots of old threads etc.... Today I found a new product on the net. 123 makes an electronic ignition unit which is drop-in and comes highly recommended by a number of individuals on this site. However, today I found that they have a new product which is completely programmable on your laptop (while you drive)! The old units all have maps built into them for the various engines, but stock only, according to the manufacturer's specifications. That means for anyone who has made any performance alterations, the timing advance will be less than optimal. Most mods tend to 'like' less timing advance.

Here is the 123 website page: http://www.123ignition.nl/id/50.html

Here is a great page I found with a chart describing the effects of various factors on timing: http://www.jcna.com/library/tech/tech0013.html just scroll down a bit.

Opinions?

Has anyone-else tried these??

[Gordon Hunter]

I can't comment on this particular unit (but I'm more than happy with my standard 123 distributor). I know that Albert and Ron (hence Albertronic) who run the company who make these have a progressive approach to their products.
I spoke to Ron (about a year ago) about fuel injection and at the time he said he was planning a fuel injection system that would replace SU carbs and work alongside their line of distributors.
And so, my guess is that in a year or so we might see a complete fuel / ignition system available for the Volvo B series engines.
This would be great as at present I don't know of any one stop answer for such a system.
I have always had good service from 123. I understand that they are keen 2cv fans and originally developed their products for these cars, branching out when things became successful.

Let me know if you go for it yourself. I'm tempted to try one on my 1800 and stick my standard unit on my Amazon!

Gordon

[Burdekin]

I'm going for a megajolt system which is 3d mappable as opposed to the 123 which has a programmable ignition curve. Effectively I don't know if it will make any or much difference but I may go to megasquirt for FI later so I'm half way there as the megasquirt can also control spark and uses the same parts as the megajolt. The megajolt is much more work to set-up is the downside.

[940_Turbo]

What are you going to do in terms of programming the ignition that is fundamentally different to what the standard 123 can do? Lots of people over the years have played with all sorts of ignition systems on B18 and B20 engines. We know that pretty much whatever the spec the engine is that there is a level of advance beyond which there are no gains to be had.

I'm not saying it is perfect, but I'm not convinced there is a discernable amount of difference that can be achieved on a road car.

[Burdekin]

Ignition is controlled relative to MAP and revs so better spark control under acceleration and deceleration is my thinking but if it is noticeably better or different with 123 I don't know. Not trying to sell the idea, just letting folk know there are other options available and I personally think the megajolt will be better as will also be using the Ford edis which seems to be a nice system. And if looking to go FI later with megasquirt then starting with megajolt is good logical first step I think. The advantage of the 123 is the ease of setting it up.

[tom-madbiker]

have you used a megasquirt system before i found it to be an utter nightmare to set up requiring constant fiddling to sort and a computer with a com port which is not so common nowadays in the end we junked it and put on a different commercial system much better although this was on a ford zetec engine i would never use one again tho the 123 dizzy looks good as for running gas and petrol a flick of the switch will advance the ignition for gas

[asneddon]

I've got a 123 Tune sitting in my garage at the moment, waiting for me to get around to installing it. Its a fantastically made bit of kit. There are a couple of things that I didnt think about when buying it though.

1) the USB port isnt waterproof. You remove an O-ringed screw and you can see the PCB and mini-USB socket in there. I was planning on leaving a cable in all the time so I could tinker when I felt like it. This isnt a huge problem, just something that didnt occur to me when I bought it.

2) You dont get all the curves! This is a bit of a bugger. With the 123-non-tune, you have 16 curves setup for the B18/B20 engines. For the 123Tune, you have 2 loaded on, and can load/save as many as you want. It would have been good to be able to download the standard ones so you had a starting point.

The cool things are you have two curves on the distributor, and can switch between them on the fly. Just take the yellow wire to a +12V and it goes to curve 2. I like this feature, as it means you can have a power and economy curve, or a 98Octane/91Octane curve, etc.

The machining is absolutely top notch. You just get a feeling of quality radiating off it, which is nice.

Anyway, I should get around to installing it sometime. The battery on my laptop has decided that it should only last 60 seconds, so I'm waiting on stupid Sony to decide if they will sell me a new one or not. Thats my fault for having a 3 year old laptop apparently.

[Burdekin]

Originally Posted by tom-madbiker

have you used a megasquirt system before i found it to be an utter nightmare to set up requiring constant fiddling to sort and a computer with a com port which is not so common nowadays in the end we junked it and put on a different commercial system much better although this was on a ford zetec engine i would never use one again tho the 123 dizzy looks good as for running gas and petrol a flick of the switch will advance the ignition for gas

No never done it but we are lucky in the sense we will have some pretty good back-up by some technical guys who have and know a lot about FI and programming and recommend MS. But I haven't even decided if I will set it up yet but it's an option maybe later on. MS is a great idea and system but it's biggest advantage is also it's Achilles heal. It's a universal ECU that can support a large range of systems and parts so when setting up you will need to know the settings for each part of the system, so this means more research and knowledge is required to get MS working properly than an off the shelf system designed for a particular application. So while it is great in the sense you can source parts from wherever it also means you need to know how to set everything up in the ECU program. It's not a plug and play system by any means but the latest MS ECUs are very good bits of kit and there is more information and support for MS than any other system. It's probably the most widely used aftermarket ECU out there but it's probably also the largest selling kit that hasn't been installed successfully as well, but that's not MS's fault. FYI: http://www.diyautotune.com/tech_arti...ford_zetec.htm

I should say I bought my megajolt parts from triggerwheels.com here in the UK and they have been first class to deal with. Any questions have been responed to quickly and clearly and they did me a deal on the parts. A friend is also looking at buying a MS kit from them and have been helping him with techinical questions as well.

[Volvo Canadian]

Hi-All.

"I'm going for a megajolt system which is 3d mappable as opposed to the 123 which has a programmable ignition curve. Effectively I don't know if it will make any or much difference but I may go to megasquirt for FI later so I'm half way there as the megasquirt can also control spark and uses the same parts as the megajolt."


"What are you going to do in terms of programming the ignition that is fundamentally different to what the standard 123 can do? Lots of people over the years have played with all sorts of ignition systems on B18 and B20 engines. We know that pretty much whatever the spec the engine is that there is a level of advance beyond which there are no gains to be had."

"I'm not saying it is perfect, but I'm not convinced there is a discernable amount of difference that can be achieved on a road car."


Thanks for all of the intellignet replies. I have yet to find anyone who has used the 123 tune, so I am not sure what difference it will make over the standard 123. Since my engine is warmed-up a bit - bored, ported, shaved and headers - I should think the advance should be less than what are purported to be fairly-conservative standard curves, as all of these factors should call for less (see chart, above) How-much, I don't know.

I guess I'll find-out, as I ordered one (Did not know about Mega-Squirt, so that decision has been avoided. I too would one day love to have FI, but that would likely be a few years down the road anyways.

Yes, it would be helpful to have the curve for my B20 already loaded - I'll ask the seller, and get back to you.

What is 3-D mappable - control of spark? I'd like to know more.

All the best.

James

[Burdekin]

Hi James,

It means advance is calculated by more than one variable, such as rpm and manifold pressure or throttle position. But you can add other things like engine temp. Some reading and examples for you: http://www.autosportlabs.net/MegaJolt_Lite_Jr.

http://jtccc.co.uk/index112.htm