"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