SDS - Coil Mounting and Fabrication of the Igntition Wires

Coil Mounting

Mounting the coils was straightforward - the cap screws used to attach the coils to the bracket were installed using loctite, and the bolts mounting the brackets to the mag hole covers were safety wired. The cap head screws got a washer due to previous cracking (refer to SDS Service Bulletins). 

Which way to wire the coils!?

Since i am not using traditional mags, do i need to wire the coils the same way that mags are wired? Of course, the I asked the question on the forums. 

Traditional mags are wired such that:

- Left pack - Cyl 1 & 3 top plugs, Cyl 2 & 4 bottom plugs
- Right pack - Cyl 2 & 4 top plugs, Cyl 1 & 3 bottom plugs

The concensus was that it was traditionally done like this because:

I liked the idea of one coil being used for the upper plugs, and one for the lower, so decided to wire it up like that. Since i am using relays to control power to the coils, the igntion test will be to hold the switch at the "upper" seelction, which activates the relay turning off the power to coil #2 (ECU2 / right coil / lower plugs). Holding it to the "lower" selection, activates the relay turing off the power to coil #1 (ECU1 / left coil / upper plugs). When released, the switch moves to the centre "both" position, depowering both relays, therefore powering both coils. 

 Fabricating the MSD spark plug wires was fairly straight forward, with Ross at SDS giving a good demo:

I was able to buy some special crimping does from Aeroflow, Part number AF59-2071 which fit in my existing crimper frame. These strip the insulation (leaving the inner conductor) using the middle part of the die, and then have 2 crimp positions for the conductor (the tip of the dies) and insulation (the inner part of the die).  

The left is the conductor crimper, the middle is the stripper, and the right is the insulation crimp die.

The wire is first stripped...

I found that crimping the inner conductor first was the go, with the insulator crimp done last. If you crimp the insulator first, it really holds up the inner conductor and makes that harder to crimp.

The only tip i will give is that you really need to use a screw driver to push down the centre conductor when crimping that - if you don't, it gets held up by the insulation and you get a poor crimp like this one:

Here the inner conductor was not grabbed by the crimp.

This is not acceptable.

The best method is to grasp the terminal with the crimper, and begin to squeeze - this holds the terminal. You can then hold the crimper with one hand, and with the other, push the inner conductor down with a flat blade screw driver. You will feel the crimper jaw touch the screw driver, which can then be removed, and you can complete the crimp. 

This is better

Then the insulation can be crimped:

This is much better.

I initially used some ADEL clamps and MSD wire seperators to lay the wires ouut nicely. The left coil (coil #1) was wired to the top plugs:

The right coil (coil #2) was used to wire up the lower plugs.

I used some dielectric grease to both lubricate the plug boot when installing, and to also keep moisture at bay. 

This was pretty good but was not very solid.

Amazon Aviation to the Rescue

I decided i didn't like the ADEL clamp and plastic seperators, so purchased some anodised aluminium igntion lead seperators on Amazon. These had one hole opened up to clearance for a #10-32 cap head screw on one end, and these were bolted to the existing ADEL clamp on the engine mount. These are *much* more solid (and look cooler IMHO). 

Finally, the proper rocker covers were put back in place