IGN1A or CDI

I'm running 8 IGN1As right now. I had thought about swapping over to CDI as i get ready to lean on the car for more power to get it north of the 1000hp mark. I read ALL kinds of mixed information about the CDI... The IGN1A provides a simple high energy spark I'm looking for and for street use probably 100% acceptable.

Whats the common thought here. Currently configured for E85 and or 118 Race fuel, Boost in the 18 to 20 psi range.

I haven't found a need to move away from an IGN1A for CDI in any of my E85/rotary applications. As a data point I'm doing a health check on a 3 rotor making a very conservative ~700 horse/514 ft lbs @ 19 psi that has never given me ignition grief today which should have similar CCP and fuel as your beast.

With regards to more exotic fuels past regular petrol/e85 you'd have to ask someone more into the drag scene.

There's guys running north of 3000 whp on IGN1A coils. The requirements to go to CDI is not so clear cut as it was 5+ years back. Basically my own experience with the M$W CDI is that while they produced great spark energy when they worked, they were not 100% reliable. The MoTeC CDI8 was a pretty solid performer but also didn't offer the spark energy of the M&W CDI. Short answer - Stick to the IGN1A and keep life simple (and cheaper).

Adding a bit to Davids comment above, with a rotary you will run into the IGN1A 40% duty cycle limitation pretty quickly. With a piston engine and direct spark you wont. You didnt mention what engine you have and since your avatar looks like an RX3 I didnt want to just assume it was a piston engine.

But if it is not rotary I would definitely lean towards the IGN1A since it is street driven and you are not running methanol and high boost. The very short spark duration of CDI usually means at low engine speeds they dont run as nice as they do with inductive ignition and they dont cold start as nice either unless it is a multiple spark type.

Watch out for the fake IGN1A's though.

I didn't work closely with this customer, but I remember hearing about a 13B rotary drag car that needed more spark energy than the IGN1A coils provide. The car was on methanol fuel at boost levels that I consider pretty high for a rotary engine (above 25 or 30psi, sorry I don't remember).

Adam,

Engine is a Billet Plated Perfial port 4 rotor with twin g42-1200 turbos. Drive-line is capable of 1500+hp but who needs that for the street. Track duty well that's open at this point. Its what the car is built for. I could foresee the only WOT use of the engine would be at some roll racing but i don't see that any time soon.

The coil packs came from Haltech..

Thanks for the feedback guys.. I think i will stick with the IGN1As for now until they arnt cutting it.

@ForceFedFab By the by, did you ever get your transient fueling issues taken care of? Curious what you found as when we last spoke you weren't able to get to the car.

David,

The issue ended up being a driveline problem. The billet yolk on the transaxle end of the TorqueTube destroyed itself. By design even in failure it wouldn't let the shaft flop around in the tube and would let the engine run. However the stresses induced by letting the clutch out with a load would put it in a bind. Acting like it was stalling out and or a fuel starvation issue. New carbon fiber shaft and tube are in route should have them any day now. I have torn the car apart for some other refinements while I was waiting on the driveline. Heat sheilds, custom exhaust blankets, revised coolant plumbing, and some other under hood items to clean up engine bay.

My instagram has photos of the yolk and the other upgrades Im in process with.