| Awesome Twin Plug Ignitions! |
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| This is a little project I've been working on for awhile. I like the idea of dual ignition on engines for used in combination with having the 2nd plug at the opposite side of the combustion chamber I 1 - more horsepower 2 - more torque 3 - lower emissions 4 - improved reliability 5 - The whole set up just looks really cool! I choose the Pertronix billet distributor for several reasons, it is a very nicely built piece at a fair price, it uses an modern solid state ignition that can be modifed for a second unit, & it should be around for a long time. |
| My original dual distributor, a 1970's era HASSAD dual distributor with a toothed belt drive connecting them. |
| My first attempt at making a dual distributor. I used fiberglass resin to bond a 2nd set of terminals onto a 009 cap. I also used sound, but there just is so little room inside the 009 cap that it was very difficult to put together & I only had room for conventional points & condensor set ups. |
| At the bottom of the page you can see my previous work. Many years ago I found a cool looking dual distributor at a VW swap meet. This got me hooked. It worked great for 10 years, then started giving me problems. So I decided to try making my own. Next I tried making a cap by basically gluing together parts from two 009 caps. It didn't work out, not enough space inside the cap. The next attempt was successful. This uses a Datsun Z22 dual distributor cap & rotor with adapters to fit to my 009 distributor. It works really well. I was going to make several of these, but then Bosch stopped making the 009 & after further research I found that the German, Mexican, & Brazilian 009 are not the same dimensions at the critical areas I care about. Finally, I was very unimpressed with the Chinese version of the 009. So I decided to switch gears & looked at the Pertronix billet VW distributor. |
| Side view of Pertronix distributor, showing the 2 separate sets of leads for the 2 ignition moduals. |
| Custom made aluminum plate allows mounting a 2nd Ignitor II modual. The second unit is set to fire 4 crankshaft degrees later than the primary unit, with the goal of extending the total ignition time. |
| Top view of the stock Pertronix advance mechanism. This unit comes with different springs if you want to adjust the advance curve. I have not done any experiments with this yet. |
| Here you can see the custom aluminum spacer to mount the Datsun distributor cap to the Pertronix body. The Datsun rotor with custom high temp phenolic mounting spacers is also shown. |
| These shot show the assembly. The firing order stamped in the cap does NOT match the firing order of an air cooled VW engine, so right now I have tape with hand written numbers. I also color coded the terminals to help avoid confusion. |
| Are you interested in having a set up like this? If so, email me & we can work out a package deal. I'm still putting together costs & I would be very interesting in seeing how many other folks would like a set up like this. |
| Twin plug heads from The Bug Patch in Santee, Ca. These are brand new EMPI heads with 40 X 35.5 valves, with a second spark plug added from below. I had these opened up for 1776 engine. These are very reasonably priced heads for all the work involved. The spark plugs in the stock location are 3/4" reach 14mm, & the new spark plugs in the bottom are 1/2" 10mm. |
| The complete set up. Shown is twin plug heads, custom dual ignition, 2 sets of stock Bosch type 3 ignition wires, 2 Bosch blue coils, a set of ignition wire markers, & 2 sets of plugs. Everything a person needs for a twin plug ignition set up. |
| So what's next? We will be building a 1776 engine for my son's bug that will run this setup. I hope to have dyno runs with & without the 2nd ignition to see the effects. Please check back periodically for updates! |
| A link to The Bug Patch Website |
| Restorations, Twin Plug Ignitions, & Cooling Modifications |
Copyright 2007-2008 Awesome Powdercoat LLC
LLC
April 16th ,2008
Hi, my name is Jim Hassad and I built just two of those ignitions for my friends who were off-road racing in the
early 70's.
I was racing 911's in amateur events and doing my own engine work at 21 years old. I had very little money,
but worked in my Dad's machine shop building jet engine tooling.
My father was very savvy about engine design and when I mentioned that Porsche used dual ignition in all
their race engines, he suggested that I drill out my street heads to accept the 2nd plug. I discovered that Porsche
had cast the heads with a boss for just that!
The problem was the $2000 cost of a factory 12 plug distributor, so I designed this unit for two 6 cylinder caps.
They are about the same size as the 009 cap. I dyno'ed the car and with 2.4 liters it put out 200 hp at the rear
wheels and 125 with just one plug running. The torque was astounding! I would beat 2.7 liter cars all the time.
My inspiration for the design came from Don Vesco's twin Yamaha TZ 700 Bonneville streamliner drive
package. He was a good friend of our family and he asked me to machine the connecting plates for the two
engine crankcases so that the toothed belt connecting the crank pulleys wouldn't need an idler pulley. The
pulleys were 3" dia. and on 20" centers with a 1.5 wide metric toothed belt connecting them!!! I set the pre-load
at .030" and the Bike ran 302 mph in 1971 at 11,000 rpm!!!
So I figured that a small belt would easily drive a second rotor shaft and I made the castings and machined up
the units.
Sadly, I found out how snooty Porsche racers are and couldn't sell any conversions. This is when my close
friends were racing off-road and having constant ignition problems with coils and wiring, so I figured out how to
weasel the tiny 10 mm plug into the VW head and made fixtures to machine the heads and new castings for the
009 distributor.
They never failed to finish a race after this. After a race they would test the systems separately and sometime
one would have failed, but they never knew it and just kept on going! I was truly shocked to see the unit on your
page!
God Bless, Jim
Hi, my name is Jim Hassad and I built just two of those ignitions for my friends who were off-road racing in the
early 70's.
I was racing 911's in amateur events and doing my own engine work at 21 years old. I had very little money,
but worked in my Dad's machine shop building jet engine tooling.
My father was very savvy about engine design and when I mentioned that Porsche used dual ignition in all
their race engines, he suggested that I drill out my street heads to accept the 2nd plug. I discovered that Porsche
had cast the heads with a boss for just that!
The problem was the $2000 cost of a factory 12 plug distributor, so I designed this unit for two 6 cylinder caps.
They are about the same size as the 009 cap. I dyno'ed the car and with 2.4 liters it put out 200 hp at the rear
wheels and 125 with just one plug running. The torque was astounding! I would beat 2.7 liter cars all the time.
My inspiration for the design came from Don Vesco's twin Yamaha TZ 700 Bonneville streamliner drive
package. He was a good friend of our family and he asked me to machine the connecting plates for the two
engine crankcases so that the toothed belt connecting the crank pulleys wouldn't need an idler pulley. The
pulleys were 3" dia. and on 20" centers with a 1.5 wide metric toothed belt connecting them!!! I set the pre-load
at .030" and the Bike ran 302 mph in 1971 at 11,000 rpm!!!
So I figured that a small belt would easily drive a second rotor shaft and I made the castings and machined up
the units.
Sadly, I found out how snooty Porsche racers are and couldn't sell any conversions. This is when my close
friends were racing off-road and having constant ignition problems with coils and wiring, so I figured out how to
weasel the tiny 10 mm plug into the VW head and made fixtures to machine the heads and new castings for the
009 distributor.
They never failed to finish a race after this. After a race they would test the systems separately and sometime
one would have failed, but they never knew it and just kept on going! I was truly shocked to see the unit on your
page!
God Bless, Jim
| Close up of Twin Ignition moduals, with Awesome Powdercoat LLC logo stamped into it. |
Twin Plug distributors, ready to go, complete with Flame
Thrower II coils.
Thrower II coils.