Matt Cramer

High performance Miata builds need high performance ignitions; the stock coils typically won’t cut it if you’re running a lot of boost or otherwise increasing the cylinder pressure. And even nearly stock engines can see a smoother idle with ignition upgrades. Mazda builders have tried a lot of different ignition upgrades to get more spark, swapping on anything from GM truck coils to coils off a Toyota Camry. But these are only small upgrades, and they don’t address some of the real issues. Our IGN-1A coils will produce a very hot spark and work great on these cars, but installing them on a Miata has typically meant fabrication and custom wiring.

Until now.

Our new MaxSpark kit for the Miata ignition does for the IGN-1A what the MSPNP line does for the MegaSquirt: We’ve made the IGN-1As an easy, turn-key upgrade for your stock Miata ignition! The MaxSpark PNP ignition kit for the 1990-2005 Miata will give you a substantial ignition system upgrade on your Miata with no cutting or splicing wires, no extra parts to buy, and no need to cut any sheet metal or even drill any holes. This kit includes everything you need: Coils, mounting hardware, a wiring harness that plugs into your stock wiring, and high quality spark plug wires.

And we’ve addressed one of the major weak points in the NA and NB Miata ignition system: Voltage drop. The Miata power wiring is undersized for sustained high RPM use, and it’s certainly undersized for high energy coils. Our MaxSpark harness solves these issues by adding a dedicated ignition relay controlled 50 amp ignition circuit, and does so Plug and Play. This allows for minimal voltage drop to the coils AND it takes all of the load off the Miata factory wiring and main relay. Ever had a main relay failure at the track? A lot of us have…



These coils are as hot as they get! These are race coils that can handle up to 19 amps of current, with twice the spark energy of the hottest OEM coil we’ve ever tested. They don’t have any unwelcome features like the GM truck coils’ overdwell “protection” that advances your timing if you run too much dwell (and why would you want to burn down an engine to protect an ignition coil?). No OE ignition coil solution is anywhere near as capable as the IGN1A, and we’ve made it PNP for you. There is a reason why these are the preferred coils in ProModified race cars.

But even with all their spark energy, these are very reliable coils – they’ll typically last for years of racing.

Note that 1990 through early 1995 Miatas will need to use either an aftermarket tachometer or a dedicated tach output from a standalone ECU. But if you need this kit, you probably will have a standalone ECU anyway. We’ve got you covered there, too.

Don’t settle for a minor upgrade that will let you run a few more PSI – go for a MaxSpark kit, open up those plug gaps, and have a Miata ignition powerful enough to support anything! It’s likely to help smooth your idle, too.
Order yours today!

rwyatt365

This is next on my mod list!

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I got my set installed. Went with DIY wiring. I am still working to get the car ready to start. But hardware wise it was all top notch. I am looking forward to getting more onto customers cars.

Lokiel

I installed my kit on the weekend into my Aussie MSM.

Delivery was extremely impressive, it arrived 2x days after I ordered it - I've had some recent deliveries from Europe that have taken months to arrive due to Covid-related issues.



I haven't connected it to the MS3pro yet but will share my initial impressions of the kit:

• the bracket and harness are extremely well made and the harness is labelled everywhere (bonus points for that)
• on the harness, I'd prefer a little more length between the fuse box 12V ring connector and the fuse on the harness since mine barely makes it outside the fuse box
• I'm quite a n a l so replaced all the short bolts for the coils with shortened Allen bolts since they're too long ("adding lightness" is the MX5 mantra)
• the 4x long bolts that connect to the rocker cover are a little short for my liking, from underneath you can feel that there's at least one thread available so I bought 4x bolts that were 5mm longer (these bolts are only lightly torqued so I prefer all threads to be engaged)
• there's no room to fit the relay on the coldside firewall on a RHD car but luckily there's a threaded M6 bolt on the cold-side strut mounting that angles ~45* down so you don't need to mount it flat on the shelf (which is NOT a good idea for relays if water can pool around it)
• don't bother taping down the door of the fuse box that access the 12V bolt until you've bolted it back in, the OEM bracket helps push the door closed; you can then tape over it to enclose it without the tape pulling off.

The only downside of this kit, besides cost, is that changing/testing the rear 2x plugs, and possibly any of the coils, requires unmounting the mounting bracket.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

CARB cert when?

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

It has a Prop65 cert. That is the same thing right?

msmola2002

So what you are saying is, if I eat my AMPEFI max spark kit, I may get cancer but only in california? cool.

Ben

iTrader: (33)

Lokiel,

Please shoot me an email (ben@diyautotune.com) and I'll get you with the engineer who was in charge of the harness. Let's get your concerns addressed. We obviously did not have a RHD car available for dev.

Thanks

Lokiel

^
Will do.

Here's the new fuse box connection and close-up of where I mounted the harnesses' relay:

- the relay sits completely clear of the shelf (master brake cylinder is in the way).

Lokiel

Here's a couple of better shots of where I mounted the harnesses' relay on my RHD car:

jnshk

I finally got around to installing my pre-release version of the MaxSpark kit today. I did have a couple of small hiccups (which I will describe in just a moment), but overall I'm very impressed with the kit. The harnesses are exceptionally well thought out, constructed, and labeled, the bracket also seems to have been designed and constructed with quality in mind, and everything you need to connect these coils in a truly plug-and-play manner is very nicely provided in one complete package.

As far as how effective these coils are in real-world use, I'm not in a position to judge at present because this setup is very much overkill for my current low-boost application. By all accounts though, if what others have experienced holds true I shouldn't have to worry about running out of overhead on my coils/spark going forward though.

I did run into two issues that slowed down an otherwise very straightforward install process. The first is that the bracket I received seemed to have a couple of the mounting holes drilled in the wrong position for my 1991 valve cover bolt layout. On my 1.6L car, the RH rear (rear passenger side) bolt kicks out slightly farther from the valve cover than the RH front bolt (forward passenger side). On the LH side the front and rear bolts appear to be in-line. On my bracket, however the bolt holes for the RH side were drilled pretty much in-line and the hole for the RH rear was kicked slightly outboard. I took a look at one of my 1.8L cars and the configuration is reversed, so it could be that my 1.6 bracket was drilled with a template for a 1.8 engine? Additionally, the length between front and rear holes was about 3mm farther than ideal. This may also be related to the difference between 1.6L and 1.8L valve covers and heads? Once I figured out what was going on, I was able to slot the holes in order to gain enough clearance to mount the bracket without putting undue stress on the bolts and the threaded holes in the head.

The second issue that I had was the same as one that Lokiel ran into: the length of wire between the ring terminal and the inline fuse holder was slightly shorter than I would have preferred.
This is probably my biggest constructive criticism of the pre-release kit that I received, in all honesty. The bracket was a little confusing and required a quick modification, but it was much simpler to resolve than cleanly altering the harness would be. If I'd had about half-an-inch to an inch more wire, it would have been much easier to route that wire to the fuse box and also to secure the ring terminal in position with substantially less effort. I probably could have used another inch or so on the 90-93 sub-harness as well, but that's just due to the routing path that I chose being close to the limit of the wiring length.

The other potential suggestions that I'd have for improving the product are related to the instructions (which may have already been updated by the time the product was released?)

• Most of the photographs that accompanied instructions were on the page after the relevant instructions. This is pretty minor, but I did find myself flipping back and forth between pages more than I had anticipated.
• Some additional photos of the "preferred" routing of the wire harnesses might be helpful to have in the instructions. I was kind of winging it and I think I did a fine job of running them where they should go, but it would have been nice to see an example. I understand that every install might be a bit different due to other modifications that the vehicle may have, but a "default" routing configuration could be useful.
• Some notes about the preferred dwell times and voltage correction might also be helpful to add to the instructions. Once I had it installed, I found myself reading a handful of posts here and on msextra to search for the dwell settings that I should be using. It would be nice to have a chart or something that would list suggested dwell based on max RPM and whether running wasted spark or full sequential.

All in all though, I'd give it a 9 out 10 cats rating; and considering that mine was one of the early kits before official release or the product--so some possible quirks were to be expected--I'm very satisfied.