Gutting an ignitor and upgrading to BIP373
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 6,020
Total Cats: 369
From: Athens, Greece
Has anyone does this yet? A friend's igniter died and we are looking to getting it back on track within the weekend, rather than finding a used igniter from a junkyard. No, he doesn't want to upgrade to COPS, and even if he did, we want to have the car ready before Monday (daily driver).
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,402
Total Cats: 7,523
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Can't imagine why it wouldn't work. It's 5v triggered active-high, and has more than enough current capacity.
You'd need to jimmy something up if you wanted to keep the tachometer working in the instrument cluster, but that's about the only issue I see.
You'd need to jimmy something up if you wanted to keep the tachometer working in the instrument cluster, but that's about the only issue I see.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 6,020
Total Cats: 369
From: Athens, Greece
A couple of diodes will solve the tacho problem, I was just looking for a quick solution to save my weekend Vs figuring it out from scratch (and the wife hating me for yet another project).
It should work fine. It's probably even an upgrade from the 1.6 ignitor.
I sometimes ground the BIPs through a spare pin directly to the motor instead of through the ground plane inside the board. It makes me feel good, but it's not really necessary.
I sometimes ground the BIPs through a spare pin directly to the motor instead of through the ground plane inside the board. It makes me feel good, but it's not really necessary.
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,402
Total Cats: 7,523
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 6,020
Total Cats: 369
From: Athens, Greece
What the igniter looks like inside. By the looks of it, I think it holds a grudge against me for using an HF-quality dremmel tool.

Proceeding to gut it.

Proceeding to gut it.
Very clever.
Are the 2 diodes for tach pulse?
Are the 2 diodes for tach pulse?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 6,020
Total Cats: 369
From: Athens, Greece
Partial success, it runs for a minute at first and then dies. The igniter gets hot, which suggests that the thermal protection kicks in. I'm using "Going low" for the spark output, this is an MSPNP9093 upgraded to MS-II. When using Going high (inverted), it doesn't want to run at all, I keep cranking for 4-5 seconds, it almosts catches for half a second, and then goes back to plain cranking.
The tacho doesn't work at all.
The tacho doesn't work at all.









