With all the recent discussion about coils going south from age, I figured I would replace the aged one on my Sunbird. I snagged a new MSD coil for my 87 Sunbird for the super score price of $5 at the Carlisle swap meet today. That made the car start a bit easier and run quicker at initial start up. I also scored a used MSD 6NT ignition box which is a lot like a 6A box, but the ones the nascar boys run.

My question is has anyone installed one in their 4 cylinder jbody and know what effect it has on the factory tachometer. For GM products, the online instructions for the 6A box says to "Bypass the inline filter." I would like more clarification what this specifically means or what I have to do to get my tach working after install the box. I don't know of any inline tach filter so wondering if that applies to my Sunbird with remote 2 plug coil.

I just want to make the car run as efficient as possible and know that MSD ignition boxes make a huge improvement on how older cars run and figure it cant hurt to put one on my Sunbird drop top. Heck at $35, I am still $10 under the price of just the coil from Summit or Jegs.

Sunbirds do not use gm style coils. They are European style but I could've wrong. You will see what I mean when you try to take them out.




On the inside my car looks like a fighter jet.

Bill-

Great Score on the part!

I don't have an answer for you as I have never done this but I can provide some supporting information.

I did the MSD upgrade on my 94 Z28. I ended up doing the 6AL with the 8876 wiring harness adapter. I then added a window switch to run my shift light at 6000 RPM. I have the old pill style version. The whole setup was about $275 so I would say you are doing great so far. I did not notice any performance improvement, but I needed the shift light . The wiring for this setup is available at jegs.com at the following url: www.jegs.com/pdfs/121-6420.pdf. You might be able to save yourself some hassle and use that as a starting point.

After I looked at it, I decided to freshen the coil on my 84 and leave the rest alone. What Rob is talking about is the older Sunbird coils are not standard GM dual plug (ODB1 timeframe) or dual plug (OBD2 timeframe). It is actually an E41 coil - shared by some Chryler products of the same vintage. I think the 2.0 cars moved to a more standardized GM coil but cannot confirm. I was thinking of splicing one in at one point, but changed my mind. Since you have already swapped the coil, you know what we are talking about.

Not sure what your efficiency goals are, but if you get this setup figured out, you could wire in small NOS cheater bottle that would rachet up the fun factor on the way to work