Greetings!

It has been a while since a proper post from me. I have been busy. Over the last 6 months I swapped my old 351w with a freshly built 351w with a thirty thousands overbored pistons, and a mild high lift cam.

It runs nice and reliable however does not have much power on the highway.

Under heavy acceleration from standstill, it has the grunt and the power.


In a nutshell the truck runs rich at idle, and lean on the highway. I figure this is caused by the ECU not compensating for the high lift cam. I have heard I will need to reflash the ECU to adjust the mixtures. Is this something the shade tree mechanic can do? Or is it best to do this with the help of a dyno and a costly professional?

In a related matter, is there a replacement performance ECU for our F150s? it is a 1995 with ODB1.

How does a MSD ignition work? Is that flashable and customizable? Is MSD the cure all ignition they make it out to be? Does it still require info from the stock ECU? Will it auto learn? or will I need to manually enter fuel maps?

Many questions, please help out, thanks!

(1995 f150 351w 4x4 E4OD Cobra)

 

What are the cam specs?

 

Of course the one question I don't have the immediate answer too. I will have the buddy that sold it to me find out tonight.

So does anyone use MSD? What are the pros and cons of full MSD ignitions?

 

Noob here. But I had an MSD box on a Dodge Dakota years ago. It wasn't the full MSD distributor and the whole system, just the box, 6A as I recall.


But basically you hook up the 'Box' to your coil wires, then run a 12V feed to the box directly from the battery. Then there are a couple wires from the box that go back to your ignition coil.


I don't believe that it interfaces with your ECU at all. It's a stand alone system. It picks up the signal to the coil, amps it up and triggers the coil to fire multiple sparks.


That is how the one worked I put on the Dakota anyways, there may be newer systems that interface with your ECU that I'm not aware of.


Anyhow, when you put it on, you gap your spark plugs wider because now the ignition system has enough juice to jump the wider gap. It made the Dakota idle smoother, have a little more power, but not much, and I think I gained 1 MPG. It wasn't night and day difference but there was some difference.


It may be more noticeable on a Ford, not sure. As I said I'm new here. Just trying to help.

 

So the MSD system was completely closed loop? There was no configuration or programming from you?

Do you know if it advances the timing at high speed?

 

I'm not sure if it advanced timing or not, but I don't think so. The box I had, was the old analog style, I know they have digital ones now that may do more stuff.


But as I said, it hooked up to the coil leads, so your ECU would trigger when the coil should fire, therefore I'm pretty sure the timing is in your ECU. Then the MSD box amped up that signal and broke it into several short snaps but over a longer duration than just the one spark that the stock system puts out.


You can use the box with your stock coil, stock distributor, or an MSD coil or another brand of coil for that matter. If you install an MSD distributor everything is just a plug in install, no cutting and connecting wires. And an MSD distributor may be better than a stock one, but not really sure.


A buddy of mine just got an entire MSD set up off a junk yard car, I think he said it was an old Maverick or something that someone had put a 302 in. He got the whole set up, distributor, coil, 6A box, plug wires. He went and sold it on Craigslist before I even knew he had it. I was kind of irked at him, I would have liked to have it for my f150 or Mustang.

 

Thanks for the input, I am still working on finding out what the specs are of the cam.

The words "Mild Cam" stick in my head.