MSD or standard coils.

[Blaster]

After a miss fire at more than 1/4 throttle on the way back from Castle Combe it looks like one of my coil packs has gone low output.

I have seen the MSB ones available on Amazon for £70.43 each or Intermotor ones for £26.57 each.

Is there any advantage to the MSD for the price?

[dapinky]

Glad you got home, Tony.

I have got MSD coils on my car, but I can't tell you if they are any better than a 'standard' one as they have been on for about 15 years!

I fitted them because someone ordered a big boxfull from Summit Racing in USA and we got a good deal, but looking on their website, by the time you add on postage and VAT etc, it's a couple of quid more than Amazon.

There is a UK seller on Fleabayat £67.50, but he is currently out of stock.

Rock Auto don't list MSD coils, but they do have a variety of other coil packs which will do the job, varying in price from £8 to £44 each.....

You can have a pair of coils on your doorstep for £30!

[Blaster]

Cheers Dave

I looked at rock auto and saw the Bluestreak ones for £21.62 each. It will add to the colour coordination in the engine bay.

[tigerdog]

My car came originally fitted with Accel "Super Coil's, that went belly up with no warning. I replaced them with MSD, one of which died when the coolant tank developed a hairline crack and gave it a lovely shower (who decided to put the coils under the tank on Fed/LHD cars???) I replaced the MSD with Standard Ignition Products Blue Streak coils and noticed zero difference from the MSD, even at full throttle and high boost (look up the ancient threads on "The Green Monster" and "Smaug" for details.)

[dapinky]

I am of the opinion (which may well be wrong, as I don't know what difference there is internally to make them 'better') that a coil either works or it breaks down and fails.....

....now, I assume that a £70 coil will have 'better' stuff inside, and so will take more use/abuse than a 'cheap' one.

However, as the 'cheap' ones are stated as being "OE Standard", and thus suitable for use in many types of GM cars of the era, that they will work as well in an Elan as any other such item, for as long as it works!

Now, as the originals in my project are 30+ years old, and have taken the car a smidgin under 80K miles, I have no way of knowing just how close they may be to failure (I put MSD on the green car when it had 130K miles on, at 15 years old - and the same on the red car).....

..... so I intend to fit my new (cheap, from Rock Auto!) coil packs whilst the current ones are still working, thus I expect them to last a while, and I will retain my old ones on the shelf in case of an unforeseen failure, which means I can stay on the road until some more new ones arrive.

Unfortunately, I lent one of my old sets to an ex-member on this site who fitted them, decided they worked, promised to get some new ones and return mine, but then sold his car and promptly disappeared and failed to reply to communication

The other old set was kidnapped by the ex-wife of a member who held them to ransom along with a set of my injectors.... and I had no intention of bowing to unreasonable demands, so chose to write them off and get on with life.

[Blaster]

I went for the Blue streak ones on rock auto. Not fitted them yet. The picture shows them blue but they are black

[Tuga2112]

theres only 2 things i can think of that would determine a difference between coil packs

1 - internal built quality -- this would affect "how long" they last before failing
2 - voltage output -- this will determine how strong your spark at the plugs is.

personally, unless the more expensive stuff puts out a higher voltage. (meaning you cna put wider gaps in your plugs and cleaner combustion as a result) i dont see the point in spending the money. because the cheap stuff the lotus fitted originally has lasted for more than 30 years for the vast majority of the scenarios. and i would assume most failures would have been due to the water reservoir overflowing than actually internal wear and tear.

i do have 4 spare brand new coil packs in my garage. they are all from rockauto and i bought them many years ago when i had an issue that lead to them being a potential failure.. it ultimately turned out to be a poor grouding, and the packs were used exclusively to test the theory, and put back in the box (i bought a spare set to keep. but ended up with 2 spare pairs)