Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Pieters;

I just finished reading the current issue of the BPA Newsletter and specifically, Richard Roller's article on how he built a crank-triggered HEI electronic ignition, with manually-selectable retard for starting, for his Ford A engine. Absolutely awesome design and execution! Beautifully crafted, well thought out, inexpensive, and no fancy programmable electronics. Just the kind of article that I love to read about, especially well-illustrated with sharp photos. If you're a motor-head, you'll like this article!

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power

Hey Oscar.

It was a very interesting project. I learned a lesson on just doubling an existing system/circuit, you can get odd results. It was very odd. Somehow (it's beyond my limited electrical knowledge) both HEI modules were getting the fire signal from any crank sensor and they fired all four plugs at the same time. It made for a very rough running engine. I spent a very frustrating week on trying to figure it out. I finally stumbled across a motorcycle site that was using GMC coils and HEI modules to do the same thing as I was trying to do. His circuit was slightly different. After removing the booster wire for the circuit (he needed more voltage at the HEI modules when cranking and I hand prop) to simplify the circuit, everything worked fine. A fun project. I like things like this!

The sheet metal part was pretty easy. I've done that sort of thing for 30 years. While still at the airline I did a lot of prototyping for sheet metal projects with the engineers. McMaster Carr is a great source of presized bushings, etc., for projects like this.

Just the sort of scratch-building and head-scratching project that I love! Something tells me you'll be getting requests to make and sell an ignition kit

-Oscar

Buenas tardes amigos contructores, donde se podria leer el articulo ? gracias por su atencion
walter

Walter; aqui se puede conseguir- https://www.pietenpols.org/ . Avisame por mensaje si te puedo ayudar conseguirlo, dirigido a taildrags@hotmail.com .

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR