Can a big block Buick be set up to run “coil on plug”? I guess you’d need some kinda distributor “plug”, and coil packs... Just thinking about a different ignition box approach.... Gary G
Modified GN cam sensor,..crank trigger and your there,..alot of guys have getting away from the coil on plug stuff past few years tho
The correct terminology is "coil near plug", for 8 remote coils with short plug wires.. "Coil on plug" is actually a plug wire and coil all in one.. Yes, I have built 2 EFI/coil near plug combos so far.. with two more in the works right now. On the latest one, we are getting away from that all the sudden expensive GN cam sensor, and going to attempt to use a factory distributor for for the oil pump drive/cam sensor signal.. any hall effect switch will provide the proper signal to the ECU. It's used in conjunction with a crank trigger for engine position information. JW
“On”, “near” y’all knew what I was talking about... Just testing the waters, if people are steering away from it, there’s probably a good reason.. I know there’s ignitions out there that’ll do what I think I need and still run the traditional distributor with a crank trigger... Gary G
I modified a Ford Escort 36-1 trigger wheel to fit the 455 crank pulley. Took both to a machine shop and said, "Make these fit together." Just a light bit of machining on the pulley to make a flat surface and then opened up the ID of the trigger wheel to match. Then drilled 4 keeper holes to lock it in place on the pulley. Been on the car since 2012. I've used both a modified HEI and modified points distributor for the cam sensor. I roughly ground all but one of the lobes off the distributor so the points open once per distributor rotation. Works like a champ. Same principle with the HEI, but I found the pickup coil "VR sensor" less reliable at slow cranking speeds. Now if I could find a set of reasonably priced aluminum valve covers with LS coil stands on them, I'd be set! I've warped these covers decently welding on them.
Gary my supercharged efi Tomohawk will have coil near plug using the GN oil drive/cam sync driven by a holley dominator ecu . Should make a alot of power.
Randall's advice was an immense help when I built this EFI 350. The escort balancer is the perfect solution for a crank trigger. As mentioned by Jim, the GN cam sensors are pretty pricey now and not necessary. They were just nice because all you had to do was pin the connector correctly for your application. It would be cool to see a vendor make some efi conversion components for our Buick engines. A cost effective EFI kit would certainly stem the tide of engine swaps.
I've heard of a few guys ditching the cnp setup but not many. There's tons of fast cars out there using it though. I have heard about the waste fire setup being unreliable on higher horsepower cars.
If the ignition coils were not engineered for wasted spark, they may over heat or under dwell. Either way lose reliable strong spark.
These are the Holley coils that are designed for waste spark. I just think they have issues supporting higher horsepower.
You could run 8 coil near plug coils and eliminate any issues by ruining 8 MSD spark boxes. One for each coil. I dont know why nobody had done this. Jeez thats a no brainier!
And eight selector switches, and eight redundant spark boxes, so that when one box fails, you can just switch to the other box(es).
