I've been reading about the boundary engineering kit and all the troubles travis has been having with it.

Is there something specific with what he's doing that is causing his problems, or is it just part of running COPs in a non-oem environment?

In other words -- you guys that have done this yourselves -- have you seen any problems / reliability concerns?

Also -- would any of you be willing to make up a nice pretty harness and sell it :)

-Tomaj

What i'm doing is taking a coil without an internal ignitor, modulating the stock ignition signals, and generating 2 outputs both a tach and a driver signal. That is shoot yourself in the face frustrating evil maniacal project that seeks to consume my soul. (being dramatic with a humor tone here guys ;))

This however, is fairly easy, straightforward, and seems to be reliable if you can control dwell. Even without dwell control it still does ok. I'm actually planning on making a PNP kit for the Toyota COP's. You may be waiting for too long for me to turn it, but there are some others around here making harnesses. Isn't Savington still doing that?

I think that creating a good looking and more or less PNP kit like what's being discussed here would be a good bet, perhaps even a better idea than your current product.

I know there's a lot of people here with various aftermarket ECUs, so there's definitely a market..

Personally i'm always wary to try these kinds of things because i'm not sure of my abilities and I would also hate to end up buying the wrong parts and having to deal with all the headache, but I'd certainly pay for someone to do the hard work for me :) That's the same reason i got an MS from Braineack instead of building it myself.

-Tomaj

Just finished reading the whole thread for a second time. The overheating thing is supposedly only during extended high RPM periods. The only way to reduce dwell on 99/00 cars from what I've read is to do so with aftermarket engine management.

Or you could just buy one of these magic dwell reducing boxes:
Boundary Engineering

Does anyone know without me opening the handbook if the EMU controls dwell & since im at it anyone gone sequential with their emus?

People have had trouble with 99/00 cars trying to run COPs at the same time as using emanage. You're going to have to read up:
COP? Coil on plug? - MX-5 Miata Forum

Part of my message is meant for Jason but I am unable to PM him since I do not have enough post count.

just read this 64 page thread about COP - and hoped that it will solve my problem of misfiring at 17psi.

I have a 04 MSM with a EMU piggy back and hoped to implement the Toyota COP system.

I wonder if I will need the dwell reducer circuit to make it work.

Jason - are u still selling the dwell reducer circuit? Pls PM me :)

hope for insights from the experts!

her shann

Question :

I am goint to temporarily remove my stand alone ECU so I will have no way to adjust dwell on my COPs

Can I run them off the stock ECU or will they fry ?

It is a 91 1.6

If I do need a dwell reducer - anybody have the schematic etc ?


Thanks

lots of people have run them on the stock ecu without reducing dwell.

Thank you brotha ! It would be nice if I don't have to mess with the COPs any more...

PHEW!!!!
Well it took me 4 days of reading, but I made it thru this thread and the 3 others in the archives. I believe I am now ready to switch Big Gulp from an MSD Digital 2 DIS with GM Twin tower style coils, to the Toyota COP setup.

Why am I doing this you ask? Keep It Simple Stupid... One of my goals for this very much OVER engineered beast is to simplify it without giving up performance. That and it just EATS those MSD coils :D

Thank you all for the wonderful insight into this mod.

Your welcome. :D

Mine is still running flawlessly. Hey Brain, weren't you attempting to make a PnP harnesses?

If I ever get Flier129 to call me back so I can pick up my coils... I will be installing this tomorrow and hopefully FULLY removing the DIS sunday and posting it for sale.

:D

Well... That didn't go too well. Made a new harness, double checked everything, turned the crank.. it started ran for 5 seconds and poof the #1 coil started smoking. Since they were used and on a very ugly harness initially, I can't rule out that the Toyota Coil was bad to start with.

*Edit*

Well.. For the record, if you are using an aftermarket ECU, you MUST set it to Falling Spark. My MSD's were Rising spark and it looks like that is what fried the coil.

I just finished making a set of PNP COPs for my friend's 95 and figured I would take a pic and post up since it took about half my Saturday and I'm charging $0/hr for labor. I labeled some stuff for someone else I sent the pic to. There's a small project box which bolts up to the firewall to hold the dwell reducer. Not sure if anyone is running JasonC's dwell reducer circuit, but I had it on my car for ~2 years both pre and post MS install with no problems. My cost was helping him clean his garage and listening to his political views. :bowrofl:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...4&d=1273608941

You are a good man !!! :)

Damn this was along thread.

Whats the 10uf cap for? Smooth out the V+ supply to the coils?

And why the Dwell mod? Was it ever proven to make a difference?

Jason did the math, there was something like 3v of drop due to stock wiring. The 10k cap solves it.

Dwell mod is a good idea. I inadvertently ran my coils at around 7ms for a while on track with the AEM and popped a couple before I realized what was happening. I know at least one person has popped one running them on a stock ECU.

I run these at 2.0ms of dwell at 13.8v :) I had burnt out the tach output on one of mine playing with a multimeter when I was building my sequential harness a few weeks back, otherwise mine have lasted 4 years now; so at least like 5,000 miles.

Looks like I popped my coils last night :( so might as well go the cop route instead of $300 coilpack route lol. I located some cops at a salvage yard for $20 a piece (cheapest I could find on www.car-part.com) but I need to know where to get the connectors, is there a part # I can order from oreillys? (in springfield I can order just about any part oreillys stocks and get it the same day or next day depending on what time I order)

Go on ebay and get the stock toyota plugs, cut off the harness with a couple inches of lead still on. Then solder on extensions. Making your own plugs will eventually fail, and in my experience was near impossible. I have no idea how people ground the metal pins down as per the instructions and made them work. You'll have to do some searching on ebay, but they're on there, it's where I bought mine.

AHA!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TOYOT...Q5fAccessories
on sale too.

yep, i bought from that same dude.

http://www.boostedmiata.com/gallery2...2/ms3x+057.JPG


howd you pop the coils?

Might have to do that if I can't find them locally. (it's my dd) I have no idea, hooked up my ms3 last night and this morning they didn't work with the stock ecu. Didn't flash firmware or anything.

Ps, why don't coils have a fuse or something?

These guys have the right parts. Pins, bodies, seals, etc. It's cheap. You can make a perfect harness from scratch, no splicing.

http://www.bmotorsports.com/

Any on have a cheap source for the 10K uF Capacitors?


scratch that, should have looked around a bit.

Got mine from the same guy, coils too. He combined shipping and I got the whole shibang for less then $100. I got brown connectors but oh well. I had to put two 4700 uF capacitors in parallel cause I couldn't find a 10k that could handle 12v that wasn't huge. I also wired the resistor for the tach signal in the igniter .

Attachment 195210

Attachment 195211

So who wants to make me one of these for about $200? lol.

I just bought another set of parts with that intention. no dibs..
but keep a look out for when I put it up for sale :p

Just put together and installed my setup today.

Car runs great with the COPs.

I would like to thank everyone on this forum who have provided input for this modification.

One thing: The car did not like having a CAP and the dwell reducer together. Popped the ENG fuse twice that way. I said the hell with it, and just went with the dwell reducer. Like I said, runs great.

Any idea why the capacitor would not agree with the dwell reducer?

did you install it backwards? should be a polar cap, bi-polar will not work.

I want to 'ground' my harness. How? Do I attach the grounds coming from the connectors into a single wire?

Nevermind. God dammit...

It was a polar cap. I even checked polarity with my voltmeter.

I then extended the cap's leads and connected them to 12V and ground. The fuse lasted maybe five seconds.

Anyway, I had a long test drive (couple hundred miles) yesterday.
Not a hickup, perfectly smooth, even during this ridiculous heatwave we are experiencing this month.

My next step is a new set of plugs gapped at .040".

Got my harness ready today and I have the coils I'm just waiting on the connectors to come fedex tommorow. I read a little ways into the thread and couldn't find where the coilpack harness plugs into. My oem coil harness runs under the intake manifold and couldn't figure out where it lead to. Not really sure if there even is a plug like the NA's have so instead I just cut off the coilpack plugs and wired up a 6 wire plug from radioshack. Should have everything up and running tommorow morning ish.

Did you guys have to modifiy your coils to fit? My coils don't go down between the "humps" all the way, theres about a 3-4mm gap. There off a 03 corolla. No biggy though, unless theres just something wierd I'm doing wrong i'll just trim down the sides a bit.

You have to file the edge of the plastic area holding the rubber gasket.

Shit, I just re-read this. I think I have it backwards. Still confused on the numbers though.

Coilpack #1: 1&4
Coilpack #2: 2&3

Could somebody confirm this?

Coilpack on the pass side is 1&4. Has a blue dot just above the plug.

Also, brown/yellow lead goes to 1&4.
Brown is for 2&3.

You can connect the two black&white leads together. That's 12V.

Best thing to do is connecting the black leads together, and adding another black wire with an eyelet big enough for one of the bolts behind the head. You get a perfect ground that way.

ok thanks, I don't feel like taking my harness connectors apart so I think I'm just going to cut the two wires and solder them back oppisite of how they are. Since I just cut into the factory plugs and theres already 2 12v wires in there I figured I might as well leave em seperate unless theres some kind of performance advantage. Same things with the grounds, if I have problems later I might switch that to the independent ground like you said though.

A very cool thing to do would be to use the black&white 12V lead to trigger a relay.
Main power for the relay would of course be taken from the underhood fuse box (the terminal with the 10mm nut.)
That way the ECU would be protected from any power surge issues, the coils would be fed better, and the load on the harness would be greatly reduced.

(You could also remove the relay as a theft protection measure, as well.)

ITS ALIVE!!! Started first time! Then quickly died right after (didn't hook up the brake booster hose) after hooking it back up... the battery was dead, jumped the battery and then after that... ITS ALIVE!!!

I made an aluminum plate to attach my coils to but I guess my coils are too short or something because the coils will sit flush against the valve cover but they won't "snap" onto the plugs when I have the plate between the coils and the vc. How'd you guys get around that? Longer plugs?

I think that's why we make the brackets, because COPs don't click into the spark plug. Make sure to countersink your bolt holes, and trim any plastic that may be keeping your COPs from sitting as low as possible.

You are correct sir. ^

Ya I trimmed the sides of the COPs so they fit without touching the sides and they do click right now but not when the plate is on, like they don't reach down far enough or something. So when I do get the plate on and the screw holes drilled will it still make good contact to the plugs even though they don't "click"?

instead of a plate, make two L shaped pieces of metal with holes at the top above the coilpacks, run a small piece of metal between them to hold the cops in tight.

Do you do anything simple?

Golferluke, they'll be fine. Trim the plastic, as you said, put them through a 1/8" aluminum bracket, bolt them to said bracket, and bolt the bracket to the 3 valve cover screw holes. This is exactly like the other COP thread tells you too. It'll be fine.

http://www.diyautotune.com/images/di...009-11_500.jpg

"This month's DIY Stud of the Month (SOTM) is Publio Morera for his cheap and easy solution to holding down individual coils on his NA Miata. Early Miata guys often convert to COPs, particularly the turbo Miata guys who need to improve their ignition system to fire off those boosted intake charges once they approach 14psi or so and start to blow out what the stock system can provide. If you've got aluminum welding skills of course you can weld hold down studs, or take it somewhere and have it done. Or, you can be a DIY Stud like Publio here and use a couple aluminum brackets held down by the center valve cover bolts, with a rod threaded through and a bit of padding/rubber above each coil to dampen vibration. The rubber cap (a vacuum cap) on the end prevents the bar from sliding out of the bracket from vibration."

Ha that's sweet but I think I'll just use my plate. What's the best way to countersink it?

Make the holes large enough so that the coils go through the plate and rest on the valve cover. You need the plate there to hold the coils down, and it will do just that. That way the coils will not be too high to jeopardize the connection between the tip and the spark plug.

Cool thanks. I've got my plate all made and ready to go, just haven't made the holes for the bolts that hold the coils down.

Use flat head machine screws (as opposed to pan head) for your "posts" and after you drill the holes for them, just countersink them with a countersink drill bit. The angle on the screw heads should approximately match the angle on the countersink bit. It doesn't have to be beautiful because it will be on the underside of the bracket, so nobody will see it. The posts are held in place with one nut, then there's another series of nuts/washers holding the COP at the proper height. I used cap nuts at the top for a more a finished look.


Attachment 194938

Attachment 194939

Hey I dom't remember getting SOTM for coming up with this conversion. :vash: :laugh:

Or you guys could get the slightly longer ones and it makes for an easy bottom mount plate.

I picked up a set.... or dozen....
http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/m...e/5b64194b.jpg

how long did it take you to arrange your swastika?

Ok so here's a question. I'm not running a cap on mine. And recentley I've been having mis-fire issues. This is on a MS1 running 2.5ms dwell.

Would adding a 10000 cap possibly help?

Also, is there any way to check they are still in factory spec?

Are you selling any of them?
I am interested in a set of cops and connectors.

-Raj

I will be selling them, but as kits with weatherpacks and wiring all done. Capacitors also included.

I'll post once they are ready.

put me on the list lol

So at this point my plan is to work on getting bottom mount plates made up for 1.6 and 1.8s. I'm also doing at least one PnP (igniter hollowed out) 1.6l set. The rest I'm intending to do as DIY/PnP... 7 wire... with weatherpack for easy removal and pigtail out of weatherpack for wiring in. This would allow for sequential installs and then by just joining 4 into 2 (cylinder triggers) you get normal wasted spark.

How does that sound for people wanting a basic solution?

Thoughts?

Mind you... i will not do a waiting list. As they get built, I'll post them up. I'm not a business, just a guy making these on the side. Please don't ask for dibs :P (that includes those already saying 'dibs' :P )

No dibs, but I'll send you a deposit.

lol