MSD coils

A waste of money...

i have the accel coils and the rock i noticed a difference in throtle response and they only cost $24 a piece from brothers performance

Subscribing . . . KT - IF they're such a waste of money, then why did 5.0 Mustang mag get roughly 40 hp from bolting them on? I read that article and just couldn't believe my eyes. I called the folks at MSD, and they support those claims. Lots of forum "info" that these coils are made identical to the stockers but red . . . well, that' not what I was told by MSD.

Is it possible that this is the best bolt on for the money currently? Is it possible that someone that has actual first hand experience with them could shed some light on their true performance gains from bolting them on.

For now, I'm going to assume that both 5.0 Mustang mag and MSD are correct . . . that is, until someone proves differently.

your not going to use coils on your car.. you need the MSD coil on plug wires and they are in the $379 range for the set of 8. a stock car will not gain a whole lot from them but a blown car usually see's a decent gain as the higher voltage and spark stops blow out issues on cars making big boost. Im going to try the stockers first on my car and then if I see it having issues up top will put the MSD's on it for comparison.

damacman said:

Subscribing . . . KT - IF they're such a waste of money, then why did 5.0 Mustang mag get roughly 40 hp from bolting them on? I read that article and just couldn't believe my eyes. I called the folks at MSD, and they support those claims. Lots of forum "info" that these coils are made identical to the stockers but red . . . well, that' not what I was told by MSD.

Is it possible that this is the best bolt on for the money currently? Is it possible that someone that has actual first hand experience with them could shed some light on their true performance gains from bolting them on.

For now, I'm going to assume that both 5.0 Mustang mag and MSD are correct . . . that is, until someone proves differently.

Click to expand...

I would suggest you avoid people from New York, or they will have you buying the Brooklyn Bridge in a moment.

You will _not_ get 40 RWHP by replacing coils, _unless_ you already have a bad one. If the motor is not mis-firing, a hotter spark is not going to gain a thing. Now if you are getting misfiring under load (and supercharging puts a denser charge in the combustion chamber needing a hot spark to fire it off) then you might get more than 40hp by replacing coils. But normally, the only gain is to the company selling the things.

If you believe the rags, you can get 40 with coils, 25 with an air filter/cold air induction, 30 with a mass air. Shoot, who needs to go to the expense of blowing a motor when it can make that kind of power naturally aspirated...

I'm still running stock ones with my BK

Um-k . . . so, you're telling me that MSD threw down money so they could affect the outcome of the dyno results reported by 5.0 mag then . . . If that's the case, then why didn't their DIS-4 box produce similar hp/$ results in the very same article?

btw . . . mama always told me "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is." But, this is a case where I think a little additional research needs be done. Forums are full of armchair quarterbacks - I'd say that if you don't have first hand experience with these parts, then you're simply not qualified to comment on them.

But . . . that's just me. My car is supercharged btw . . .

Doesn't SRTHandz claim to have like 255rwhp w/ just MSD coils and intake or something? I remember making this:
View attachment 369046

but i was joking, you got to be kidding me. Show me ANY bolt on that gets close to that on our cars. I think you have the proving to do, not us in proving you wrong.

damacman said:

Um-k . . . so, you're telling me that MSD threw down money so they could affect the outcome of the dyno results reported by 5.0 mag then . . . If that's the case, then why didn't their DIS-4 box produce similar hp/$ results in the very same article?

btw . . . mama always told me "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is." But, this is a case where I think a little additional research needs be done. Forums are full of armchair quarterbacks - I'd say that if you don't have first hand experience with these parts, then you're simply not qualified to comment on them.

But . . . that's just me. My car is supercharged btw . . .

Click to expand...

As I said, _if_ you are experiencing misfiring, you will get a significant improvement by swapping coils. But if the misfiring is caused by a bad coil, then a factor replacement will have the same effect. It is beyond unlikely that a simple coil replacement will get you much of anything, unless at your boost level, whatever that is, your coil can't produce enough spark to jump the plug gap in that dense charge.

BTW I have tried tons of such parts over the years. You can take an old 5.0 and rip off the ignition and replace it with 500 bucks worth of MSD (or anybody else's) distributor, coil and wires, and you will either see no effect if your old system was working properly, or a big boost in HP/torque if your old system was defective.

It's like the filter advertisements. Yes a new free-breathing filter will add 10 hp to a motor compared to the factory filter full of dirt and gunk. But compared to a new filter, forget it. Once you start sucking in 2x the air with a 'charger, it might give you more since you are trying to pump as much air as possible.

In general, more horsepower is not easy to come by. What you get comes through cam timing, more compression, more air/fuel going in, and/or more RPM. 30 dollar spark plugs and 400 dollar coils are not going to get much of anything over good factory parts in good condition.

As far as the mags/rags go, you can find someone willing to write almost anything about anything. Figuring out what is truth and what is fiction is a challenge. But you have to do it or you will end up owning the Brooklyn Bridge and being out a lot of money in the process.

Best bet is to go to the drag strip and ask the street-type racers there if they have tried such parts and what they found out. You'll get better information that way...

Anyone from MSD like to chime in?

I just changed the spark plugs ,bout 3 weeks back. the rubber gromet that fits over the plug was rotted and cracked ! on all 8 ! I also read the wrightup in 5.0 mag and that was a s/c car. im thinking about buying something like those just to replace the old cracked , flakey old rubber stockers. edit: if memory serves corect , the wright up in 5.0 mag the cop were from granatelli? and every one on stangnet has been warned of that brand?

damacman said:

Subscribing . . . KT - IF they're such a waste of money, then why did 5.0 Mustang mag get roughly 40 hp from bolting them on? I read that article and just couldn't believe my eyes. I called the folks at MSD, and they support those claims. Lots of forum "info" that these coils are made identical to the stockers but red . . . well, that' not what I was told by MSD.

Is it possible that this is the best bolt on for the money currently? Is it possible that someone that has actual first hand experience with them could shed some light on their true performance gains from bolting them on.

For now, I'm going to assume that both 5.0 Mustang mag and MSD are correct . . . that is, until someone proves differently.

Click to expand...

I read the article also. In the article it said the car needed a tune, any car that has a supercharger only making 332 rear wheel horsepower does need a tune. Most that I have seen make around 375 rwhp. So if they started with the car that was tuned right first, then there was not much of a gain in rwhp.

just to clarify my early post.. we're looking for 550rwhp or better on my combo and I intend to use the stockers unless I start seeing spark blowout. at this power level the stockers could start to be a concern and there a need for hotter COP's. for your average blown car in the 400 range the stockers are more than adequate.

cooper said:

I just changed the spark plugs ,bout 3 weeks back. the rubber gromet that fits over the plug was rotted and cracked ! on all 8 ! I also read the wrightup in 5.0 mag and that was a s/c car. im thinking about buying something like those just to replace the old cracked , flakey old rubber stockers. edit: if memory serves corect , the wright up in 5.0 mag the cop were from granatelli? and every one on stangnet has been warned of that brand?

Click to expand...

Advanced auto parts sells kits that contain 2 replacement boots and 2 replacement springs (so you need 4 kits total). We had the same problem on my son's 2000. Two of the plugs boots were split on the bottom, and we were getting a small amount of engine coolant into the plug area from the famous intake leak (he bought the car not knowing nor being able to see that it was barely leaking... the dealer had cleaned it up nicely. )

Caused the thing to run fine one day, and miss and jerk the next. Runs just fine now that the leak is gone and all the boots are again solid.

I think the kits go for 12-15 bucks, making this a 50-60 buck repair that is easy to do.