These are awesome. RyanPzz showed them to me. They replace the standard bosch 001 and cost around $5.

vb921 by stmicroelectronics
they clamp the amperage at 7.5 amps for each coil
w/ flyback protection
don't even get warm with proper dwell control

http://www.illstreet.com/forums/attach-923

Sweet! (Quick, somebody tell me what the fuck he's talking about...)

Those are what some people are using on the Megasquirt's...

Infact, what your looking at is the top cover of a Megasquirt.

Sweet! (Quick, somebody tell me what the fuck he's talking about...)

An ignitor works with electronic ignition...

Ye olde school ignition used points. Points are an actual physical switch that opens and closes to charge and trigger the coil to fire the spark plug. This wears out pretty quick and requires adjustment every so often.

So they designed this thing called Hall effect/VR sensor. It's basically a coil that senses when a metal arm comes by and triggers it. This requires no adjustment and very rarely wears out. Problem is, you can't directly control the coil with it. The coil takes several amps of power. The Hall Effect/VR sensor puts out very small pulses of power.

In comes the ignitor. The ignitor is essentially an amplifier. Takes a small signal in and puts large amounts of power out.

1st Gens use a Mitsubishi J109 type that's about the size of a matchbox. It's mounted to the distributor. (This is for 1981-1985's) 2nd Gens use a larger type that bolts to the back of the coil.

What you are seeing are three aftermarket ones used to trigger the coils off of the signal generated by a Megasquirt...

Megasquirt is a home brew, DIY, Open Source ECU.

those ignitors can just as easily be used to replace the FC ignitor or ignitor for a haltech/microtech

Unless your going for big big power, I'm still a fan of t2 coil/ignitor.

Cool beans. So how are they triggered? Switched ground or +bat? I think I'm going to have to look up the specs on that vb921 and see for myself.

Ok, I looked up the specs. It's standard TTL 5V so it works directly from the ECU.

yeah, same as running one of the larger stock ignitors people usually use.

You'll have to forgive me. My last formal automotive training was 11 years ago in engine performance theory and lab at my local community college. Things have progressed quite a bit since then. I was thinking of ways to use this nice little IC, but I'd have to do some external support circuitry to make this useable on an application that does not have an ECU in control of the timing. I mostly do restoration work and if I can make a small enough ignition box that could be triggered by points I could hide it easily. I'll have to look at the IC specs again and see if I can make it work on a 6V pos. ground car.