Ok, so I got it hooked up.

Small black wire went to coil negative
Small orange wire went to coil positive

White wire went to stock negative female plug that went to the stock coil
Small red wire went to stock coil's positive, for ignition.

Big red wire to Battery positive
Big black wire to Battery negative.


Went to go start it up, car had about 9v in the battery. Went to turn it over, and didn't even try to spin. No click, no nothing indicating the low battery. 2nd time I tried it popped out of the exhaust.

Battery is on the charger right now. Any idea's? Is my wiring correct? I will try it again later when it is charged back up. I hope it doesn't need a full charge every time I go to start the car. With the 2nd gen coil before, I had the car below 8v and it still started...

 

Seems right. This is the very basic way you can install an MSD to the RX. We installed an MSD to my buddies car the same way. All the colors ring a bell except for the white wire. I am not saying it is wrong.....I just don't remember off the top of my head.

Battery is prolly just a little down and needs a boost. Usually with the MSD, the car will start easier.

Keep up posted on the results..

 

Well, charged it up, and the volt meter showed 12v+. Went to start it and a loud pop came from the front of the car. Coulda sworn I saw a flaming piece of something fly up.

I swear if I fried my box I will be PISSED.

 

Looks like you wired it right. I swear it is hard to fry those MSD boxes.

Here are the instructions...

http://www.msdignition.com/uploadedF...structions.pdf

 

I am assuming you installed this on your leading only??? (hope so)

 

Yep leading only. I triple checked the wiring.

 

Have you considered the green and purple (lavenderish) wires? You probably should instead of the white wire.

 

No. That isn't used since I am using the stock dizzy. Page 10 of the MSD instructions you can download, is exactly how I wired it. On the phone with them now...

Edit: Ok, so 15 minutes on hold and I got a guy who was zero help at all. All he said was that is how it is supposed to be wired up.

 

Click on downloads, and scroll to page 10:

http://www.msdignition.com/msd6a.aspx

 

You can use the stock dizzy and hook it up with the green and purple wires. You just have to do a little surgery on the distributor.

I would stick with the way you are doing it now just to make sure the MSD is working right.

 

Pictures:



In order from left to right:

Sheath housing the coil's positive and negative wiring
Battery Negative
Battery Positive
Signal (notice that I have a red wire ran, the white wire was way short)
12v Ignition source


This is the 2nd gen coil and ignitor assembly. I removed the positive and negative leads for the ignitor, and it is in the sheath. I took the P&N leads from the Ignitor to the Coil off, and ran the MSD's P&N wires to the respective posts.

No sense in having basically an Ignitor firing an ignitor firing a coil.



This is my source for the 12v. It is the stock coil's positive post. It gets power when the key is turned.



This is the stock leading coil's negative. It is what gets the signal from the stock J-109. I removed it from the stock leading coil, so it no longer fires. Inserted a Male spade connector and that runs the white wire (remember that I used a red wire to extend the length of the white) for the signal to send the juice to the 2nd gen coil.



This is the big red wire from the MSD box, obviously needing to be for the battery's positive post.



This is the crummy negative terminal of the battery. I have a new terminal but will replace it when/if the MSD box will run. The big black wire coming from the MSD box gets grounded here.




That is all my wiring for the MSD box. Everything has been soldered, crimped and heat shrunk minus the positive battery terminal connection.

 

I am trying to keep it fail-safe. I don't want to have to hack up my dizzy. I had it set up so that if the MSD fails, I can move a few wires and be back to 2nd gen leading. If that fails, I move the plug wires and the negative signal back to the stock coil and run stock ignition. Never be too careful with these cars.

 

Page 10:

 

Also, the negative battery picture, that is not the exposed MSD wiring you see. It is a ring connector to the screw that tightens down the terminal to the post. The copper wire you see is because the crappy terminal head will not get tight enough to keep it on, so I put the copper wire in there to help for now.

I know the wiring is a mess, but I have enough loom here to make everything look nice. No reason to have everything look perfect then something like this happens and you have to take it all apart.

 

Yaw's method:

http://www.smbaker.com/rail/msd6a.html

 

Stu, you going to have the ditch the J109 on the dizzy and hook the green and purple wires to the magnetic pickup directly. Betcha it will work then.

 

You can do it that way, but you're getting about hald of the power from the MSD to the coil... Throw away that white wire, and hook up to the leading magnetic pick up you'll be happy you did. Just find an old bad ignitor and gut it then you can plut directly into the top of the ignitor and it looks all clean and stock.

 

This is true....you might have a bad ignitor.

Have you tried to hook back up everything minus the MSD??

Where are you mounting the box....hopefully out of the weather!!??

Is it starting or just running like ****? Are you getting spark?

I would try to hook it back up without the MSD.

 

I have always used the purple and green wires.

Go ahead and gut that ignitor you just let the smoke out of

-billy

 

im telling you that you can't hook it up with the white wire and use a FC coil. You have to go drirectly off the magnetic pick up or it's only going to fire every other time and not on the right time. the ignitor only tells the coil to fire twice per revolution, and they are 90* apart and if you look inside the car where the leading pickups are you'll see it fires at 90* and 180* when you hook up wasted spark as you're trying you need to fire both plugs at the same time 180* apart. you're going to blow your **** up if you don't hook it up right. If you want to hook it up with the white wire you HAVE to run it through the stock coil anmd dizzy cap hooked up exactly as shown in the pic you posted. got it? white wire NO FC COIL! magnetic pickup you get to use the FC coil, you get wasted spark, and you don't have to waste a spark in the dizzy cap.
edit:
i attached pics on how to hook it up a few different ways.

 

Sweet. Something to do tomorrow. That and replace all my fusable links with BUS fuses.

 

Hooked it up this way as well. Got rid of the J-109 and using the MSD box in its' place for the leading side only.

Agree with Hyper4 ^^^^^^

also w/ bad83 "Stu, you going to have the ditch the J109 on the dizzy and hook the green and purple wires to the magnetic pickup directly. "

 

That is a very nice way to do it.

 

FYI MSD's are more reliable than a Chevy 350. The one on my shelf I bought when I was 16 (im 27) and has been in 2 Civics, a Jetta, a supra, 4 FB's and a FC, and it still works perfectly. Only reason I'm selling it is because I went digital. Hook it up right and you won't have any problems.

 

I say replace the flux capacitor inside the MSD box