[massey478]

5Tractor guy and AZKen, my apology if my presentations of engineering facts and experiences seemed to be a battle of who is right and who is wrong. It was not intended to come across that way! It was to be presented as a discussion of engineering facts and sharing my hard earned experiences and with work on our tractor dyno with the Massey 1100 with the 478 for the edification of others here that have not had those opportunities. For the doubters about the MSD system, google "Benefits of an MSD ignition system" and read the testimonials and factory information. My son and I too adamantly ignored these systems on other's cars in years past, thinking we were as good as them with our Mopar orange box and stock or later the Excel Super Coil. After finally trying an MSD system we were amazed at the difference. A friend of ours followed suit with the same result on his strip/mostly street car. It will be of interest of those here to see that MSD systems actually do transfer down to stock motor use because of their ability to do the multiple 5 spark discharge (Hence the name "MSD") to enhance fuel mixture ignition up to 3,000 RPM which is the range in which most stock motors operate. Our car we race but drive on the street mostly is not a full race car. It is of all things a 1968 four door Dodge Monaco 440 CI with the 1960's era long ram two four barrel manifolds with chassis enhancements we know work on the strip but leave it street driveable with no problem. No performance stickers in the windows, etc. like lots of guys do. We look at all of the stickers and say "Right, how much of that stuff is really on your car and how much is to supposedly intimidate others?!". We believe in keeping a low profile and not ballyhooing what we have on the car, only things we have proven work. The MSD tremendously helped street performance, no more fouled plugs, better fuel mileage. I do not care about mileage anyway if the vehicle is doing what I want, but the improvement was still there! SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) journals detail how our 'friends' at EPA have caused gasoline refiners to make new gasolines with a long chain molecule instead of the older circular molecule structure our carbureted V-6 motors were designed to run on. They went to the long chain molecules because of vapor emissions when filling the tank for instance. The long chain molecular structure does not vaporize as fast as the older ring molecular structure, resulting in fewer vapors. This also means it does not vaporize in carbureted systems as fast as the older fuels did, making it harder to light and therefore decreasing fuel mileage and performance. Then you have the added 10% alcohol that makes it even worse as I have explained. Now they are trying to mandate 15% alcohol! The problem will become even worse! These problems do not come into play in the computer controlled fuel injection systems virtually all newer engines have currently. Those reasons are why we have to give our older motors all of the advantages we can given the changed fuel situations we now have to deal with.