the lowdown on the msd 8973 box

i copied this reply from another thread in the tech questions section. i had planned on bringing it up on the buzz anyway. here's the post. the overall message is stay away from the box.

while i ran one earlier in the year, i'm rapidly losing faith in not only the effectiveness of the msd 8973 box, but of the overall reliability and safety to run one.

i know of at least 6 motors this year that have been seriously hurt with the culprit being the msd 8973 box. ask snyder and thacker.

i was a big believer in the features of the box earlier in the year. knowing what i know now, i would stay away from them. the box has some issues, whether msd wants to admit it or not.

msd will swear up and down the box doesn't have the ability to add timing, but i saw it add 50 degrees of timing on the jackstands on our racepak. the timing was jumping to 77 degrees. how i didn't have the blower sitting in my lap, i dont know. the reason why it threw a fit was because i had two retard settings on top of each other, so yes, there was user error involved. but it did demonstrate when something goes wrong on this box, it goes bad wrong....not just half ass.

what i did wrong was i had 11 degrees out on the launch retard setting (transbrake) and 11 degrees out at 0.0 seconds, thinking that the launch retard was my button setting and the timing would transition to the 0.0 setting once the button was released. what i later found is 0.0 is also taken out on the button, so it was 'stacking' the retards. it threw a fit and would damn near die, spit sputter, pop, u name it. we spent a day on the jackstands trying to diagnose it. now once got rid of the launch retard, it ran fine. BUT, the way that box works, it says if two retards are on at once, they will have a cumalitive effect, which should have retarded 22 degrees. instead the racepak showed the timing going from 27 to 77 on the button (flatlined i might add).

while i'm not going to speak for marty, mick and others who have had serious engine failure associated, the failures were just stupid things happening that went away when they quit running the box.

until msd admits there is a problem i would stay away from the box and just run a six shooter.

thats a highly recommended opinion. i can't back it up with a factual reason 'why' the boxes are failing, but i go to a lot of races, talk to a lot of races, and i wouldn't run one right now, period.

 

quote

one of the best quotes ever from Tom Conway

"These cars aren't that smart"