Buschur Racing Coil on plug ignition
Dec 18, 2008, 10:40 AM
#1
Buschur Racing Coil on plug ignition
This is a thread to just put out some information, facts and history. I get tired of the threads that get locked from fighting/bashing in them on this same subject over and over and over again. This thread should put an end to that. This is not a comparison thread and isn't being put out as such.
Let's first go back a long way, before most other current DSM/EVO companies were even in business, 10+ years ago. Tym Switzer who was probably my best friend at the time and the Sales Manager of Buschur Racing had an idea for an ignition. Tym was the brain child behind the coil on plug igntions for the DSM's and the EVO's, end of story. Tym built these COP ignitions and while he worked here, because it was his idea to begin with, I felt it was fair to buy them directly from Tym and they were sold solely through us. Times went on, the EVO's came out, he developed that system too and the pattern continued. Eventually Tym moved on to open his own shop. When this happened the supply dried up and I could no longer get the COP's. Tym told me he could care less if we just built them ourselves as he didn't have time to build them anymore. At that point in time the process was taken over by Daniel, my brother-owner of the service side of our business. The COP's were originally fitted with AEM CDI boxes that all failed. Daniel then built a non CDI ignition that used no external ignition box for the EVO's. Then the M&W CDI box was found and used and proved to be extremely reliable unless someone decided to fill the box with water.
The price on the Evolution COP's was (a few years back) $999.
At the shootout a few years ago, the year we ran the first ever 8 second pass in an EVO8, we were running our COP with the M&W CDI box. AMS was also there and their car was giving them fits, it could not make a clean pass. After we ran our 8 second pass, ignoring the pleas to not do it, I took our COP ignition over to AMS and gave it to Martin and told him how to set up the AEM to make it all work. Instantly the problem with their car was fixed and they went on to set their fastest ET/MPH's at the time. It was at that time that AMS started selling our COP ignitions. The only problem we had was our profit margin on the COP was too low and it was requested that we raise the retail price so the margin was higher so AMS could also make enough profit on the part. We did this and the retail pricing went up to $1129. The price stayed like this to honor our agreement for over a year.
Well as with all things someone always comes along and sees a good thing and jumps on the band wagon. When the COP ignitions started being offered by other people their price was lower than ours. Without notice we no longer received orders from AMS and at that point in time we were able to drop our pricing back down to where it was in the first place, $989. The drop in price wasn't from the competition it was simply putting the price back where it was, now that our agreement was no longer there with AMS.
With the introduction of another product being available there were a lot of things said about why one product is better or worse blah blah. One of the things brought up was the wiring. If you buy an M&W CDI box they have in the instuctions that the wires in the harness are to be twisted and a secondary ground is also in there.
Let's talk about this for a minute. The twisting of the wires is for cancelling out electrical interfence. It states in the manual:
"Use twisted pair wire for all power and coil connections. To comply with Australian EMC 'C Tic' standards and for ultimate noise suppression use shielded twisted pair wire."
We do NOT twist the wires, it keeps the harness lighter and easier to work with. The twisting is NOT required, read the paragraph above, we are not in Austrailia and there is no problems with electrical interference, that is why we do not do this.
The other issue is the redundant ground. We use one ground wire on our systetm, it runs from the battery directly to the CDI box. We were advised by the tech with M&W that this secondary ground is not needed, therefore we do not use it. If you again, refer to the instruction manual there is a (**) next to this ground. This secondary ground taps into the ground wire that we use and that runs directly to the battery ground. The (**) next to this secondary ground reads: "**Shielded cables required for Australian EMC compliance" As I said, the ground is redundant.
With all of this said and these things pointed out, we didn't just listen to what was said by the tech at M&W and we didn't just "wire one up". We have twisted the wires and we have run the harnesses with the extra ground strap. The results were, "No change."
We were also approached by M&W to buy their pre-built harnesses for $150 each. We were sent a sample of the harness to check out and run. First off the harness is substantially longer than our harness we make here in house. I am not interested in a longer harness because before anyone else came up with a mount to mount the M&W box we had already addressed the mounting issue when we built our "new style" battery trays, which was about 2.5 years ago. We mount the CDI boxes right to the side of our battery trays, which is why they are built how they are built.
Back to the harness. With all the things I read on EVOm and the comments that are made I started to question my brother who builds the COP's. I asked all these same questions that I am now posting here about the twisting of the wires and the ground. I was given the manual and the explanations. Daniel then threw the M&W harness at me that he had received and told me to run it and see for myself as he had already tested it. I did just that. I took our complete harness off my RS and installed the M&W factory built harness with the redundant ground and twisted wires............well folks, there was absolutely no change in performance, drivability, feel or anything else. All I ended up with was a longer harness and an extra ground to attach.
With all of this said and out in the open I want to point out we don't just "do stuff" here. We test, test, test and then test again. That is apparent to most people and for those people it is not apparent to I probably can't help them. We don't "skip" a process in building our COP ignitions just to skip it because we think we are genius's. We skip the process of the twisted wires and redundant ground because it is simply not needed and provides no benefit to our ignition system.
The other thing I'd like to point out is the factory uses plastic wire loom on the entire harness in the car. As a matter of fact I don't know of a production car built that doesn't use plastic wire loom on their harnesses. It is lightweight and does it's job. If it's good enough to put into a car that is meant to run in every climate in the world for 100,000+ miles it's for sure good enough to be put under the hood of an EVO with it's other 50' of factory installed wire loom, it even matches.
Last but not least I want to post a picture of our coil on plug igntion, M&W CDI box (with our sticker of course) coil on plug plate and the battery tray with the CDI box mounted to it. All of the bolts used to assemble the coils to the plate and the bolts used to mount the CDI box to the battery tray are 304 grade SS, so they won't rust and look like crap in the future.
This thread is not for bashing and argueing. If you don't have something useful to say, please find another thread to post in. There is nothing in this post other than straight up facts that can be verified by picking up an M&W manual or maybe making a phone call.
Thanks for reading.
Let's first go back a long way, before most other current DSM/EVO companies were even in business, 10+ years ago. Tym Switzer who was probably my best friend at the time and the Sales Manager of Buschur Racing had an idea for an ignition. Tym was the brain child behind the coil on plug igntions for the DSM's and the EVO's, end of story. Tym built these COP ignitions and while he worked here, because it was his idea to begin with, I felt it was fair to buy them directly from Tym and they were sold solely through us. Times went on, the EVO's came out, he developed that system too and the pattern continued. Eventually Tym moved on to open his own shop. When this happened the supply dried up and I could no longer get the COP's. Tym told me he could care less if we just built them ourselves as he didn't have time to build them anymore. At that point in time the process was taken over by Daniel, my brother-owner of the service side of our business. The COP's were originally fitted with AEM CDI boxes that all failed. Daniel then built a non CDI ignition that used no external ignition box for the EVO's. Then the M&W CDI box was found and used and proved to be extremely reliable unless someone decided to fill the box with water.
The price on the Evolution COP's was (a few years back) $999.
At the shootout a few years ago, the year we ran the first ever 8 second pass in an EVO8, we were running our COP with the M&W CDI box. AMS was also there and their car was giving them fits, it could not make a clean pass. After we ran our 8 second pass, ignoring the pleas to not do it, I took our COP ignition over to AMS and gave it to Martin and told him how to set up the AEM to make it all work. Instantly the problem with their car was fixed and they went on to set their fastest ET/MPH's at the time. It was at that time that AMS started selling our COP ignitions. The only problem we had was our profit margin on the COP was too low and it was requested that we raise the retail price so the margin was higher so AMS could also make enough profit on the part. We did this and the retail pricing went up to $1129. The price stayed like this to honor our agreement for over a year.
Well as with all things someone always comes along and sees a good thing and jumps on the band wagon. When the COP ignitions started being offered by other people their price was lower than ours. Without notice we no longer received orders from AMS and at that point in time we were able to drop our pricing back down to where it was in the first place, $989. The drop in price wasn't from the competition it was simply putting the price back where it was, now that our agreement was no longer there with AMS.
With the introduction of another product being available there were a lot of things said about why one product is better or worse blah blah. One of the things brought up was the wiring. If you buy an M&W CDI box they have in the instuctions that the wires in the harness are to be twisted and a secondary ground is also in there.
Let's talk about this for a minute. The twisting of the wires is for cancelling out electrical interfence. It states in the manual:
"Use twisted pair wire for all power and coil connections. To comply with Australian EMC 'C Tic' standards and for ultimate noise suppression use shielded twisted pair wire."
We do NOT twist the wires, it keeps the harness lighter and easier to work with. The twisting is NOT required, read the paragraph above, we are not in Austrailia and there is no problems with electrical interference, that is why we do not do this.
The other issue is the redundant ground. We use one ground wire on our systetm, it runs from the battery directly to the CDI box. We were advised by the tech with M&W that this secondary ground is not needed, therefore we do not use it. If you again, refer to the instruction manual there is a (**) next to this ground. This secondary ground taps into the ground wire that we use and that runs directly to the battery ground. The (**) next to this secondary ground reads: "**Shielded cables required for Australian EMC compliance" As I said, the ground is redundant.
With all of this said and these things pointed out, we didn't just listen to what was said by the tech at M&W and we didn't just "wire one up". We have twisted the wires and we have run the harnesses with the extra ground strap. The results were, "No change."
We were also approached by M&W to buy their pre-built harnesses for $150 each. We were sent a sample of the harness to check out and run. First off the harness is substantially longer than our harness we make here in house. I am not interested in a longer harness because before anyone else came up with a mount to mount the M&W box we had already addressed the mounting issue when we built our "new style" battery trays, which was about 2.5 years ago. We mount the CDI boxes right to the side of our battery trays, which is why they are built how they are built.
Back to the harness. With all the things I read on EVOm and the comments that are made I started to question my brother who builds the COP's. I asked all these same questions that I am now posting here about the twisting of the wires and the ground. I was given the manual and the explanations. Daniel then threw the M&W harness at me that he had received and told me to run it and see for myself as he had already tested it. I did just that. I took our complete harness off my RS and installed the M&W factory built harness with the redundant ground and twisted wires............well folks, there was absolutely no change in performance, drivability, feel or anything else. All I ended up with was a longer harness and an extra ground to attach.
With all of this said and out in the open I want to point out we don't just "do stuff" here. We test, test, test and then test again. That is apparent to most people and for those people it is not apparent to I probably can't help them. We don't "skip" a process in building our COP ignitions just to skip it because we think we are genius's. We skip the process of the twisted wires and redundant ground because it is simply not needed and provides no benefit to our ignition system.
The other thing I'd like to point out is the factory uses plastic wire loom on the entire harness in the car. As a matter of fact I don't know of a production car built that doesn't use plastic wire loom on their harnesses. It is lightweight and does it's job. If it's good enough to put into a car that is meant to run in every climate in the world for 100,000+ miles it's for sure good enough to be put under the hood of an EVO with it's other 50' of factory installed wire loom, it even matches.
Last but not least I want to post a picture of our coil on plug igntion, M&W CDI box (with our sticker of course) coil on plug plate and the battery tray with the CDI box mounted to it. All of the bolts used to assemble the coils to the plate and the bolts used to mount the CDI box to the battery tray are 304 grade SS, so they won't rust and look like crap in the future.
This thread is not for bashing and argueing. If you don't have something useful to say, please find another thread to post in. There is nothing in this post other than straight up facts that can be verified by picking up an M&W manual or maybe making a phone call.
Thanks for reading.
Dec 18, 2008, 11:23 AM
#3
David, I am curious when you say there was no difference at all in the twisted pair harness to how you have your harness setup. On our 1G we noticed that there was interference issues (noise) when we ran the straight harness setup and the twisted fixed it. Conversely on the Evo it made no difference. I cant think of why this would be, other than maybe an alternator issue (it is relocated on the 1G) or something about the 1G CAS being susceptible to noise.
My question, I guess is, is that only in there because of specific platform setups do you think?
My question, I guess is, is that only in there because of specific platform setups do you think?
Dec 18, 2008, 11:38 AM
#4
Well, EMI can be caused by many different things. The EVO has a very, very good grounding system in it already, thus the lack of change when BR tested the twisted wires and extra ground.
Twisted wires and extra/clean grounds can make a substantial difference, but it depends on the application. The evo ignition system is not one of them.
*As a side note, i am glad the price is back down on these, I will be picking one up for the upcoming season.
Twisted wires and extra/clean grounds can make a substantial difference, but it depends on the application. The evo ignition system is not one of them.
*As a side note, i am glad the price is back down on these, I will be picking one up for the upcoming season.
Dec 18, 2008, 12:53 PM
#5
I do not have a definite answer Johnbradley but the two systems are completely different. The DSM COP is just the COP unit. My guess is you had an MSD or some other type of ignition box wired into the system. I personally don't remember having any issues with the radio on my 1g but good grief, that was a long time ago for me. I think back then I had the COP and it was wired directly into the factory wires, no MSD.
As for the EVO, all I can tell you is what we've tried, the lack of any type of interference and what the actual manual for the M&W box states. I am glad you didn't have any problems on the EVO though, it backs up what I am trying to explain
As for the EVO, all I can tell you is what we've tried, the lack of any type of interference and what the actual manual for the M&W box states. I am glad you didn't have any problems on the EVO though, it backs up what I am trying to explain
Dec 18, 2008, 01:15 PM
#6
Like I have said time and time again. I ran both yours and sparktechs and I didn't really notice a difference. I can say that I ran 1 mph faster with the buschur unit in the car. Not to much of a difference and that could have happen from just about anything....
The one thing I like about the buschur kit is it lets the valve cover breath allowing for cooler head temps overall. Might not be a big difference to many people but it is to me.
-Emery
The one thing I like about the buschur kit is it lets the valve cover breath allowing for cooler head temps overall. Might not be a big difference to many people but it is to me.
-Emery
Dec 18, 2008, 01:21 PM
#7
No this was our 1G racecar and it uses an M&W COP as well. But question was answered by the other gentleman about the EMI. Thanks though for the history of COP, its interesting to see how it developed.
Last edited by JohnBradley; Dec 18, 2008 at 01:29 PM.
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Dec 18, 2008, 03:51 PM
#10
johnbradley, I figured that there was some type of CDI/ignition box on the car, I didn't realize it was the M&W. I do not have an explanation why the EVO is fine and the DSM is not. The explanation given above, as you said, could very well be correct.
Thanks for the support guys and chiming in on running the product.
This thread, is just to clarify some things with some pure facts. No arguements, no slamming someone else's product. Simply facts on how things have progressed over the years, price changes etc.
Obviously both COP ignitions that are on the market for the EVO work, obviously.
We posted a thread a week or two ago about our intake manifolds/throttle bodies and the thread had good response. A few people asked about having more threads like that, here's another one
Thanks for the support guys and chiming in on running the product.
This thread, is just to clarify some things with some pure facts. No arguements, no slamming someone else's product. Simply facts on how things have progressed over the years, price changes etc.
Obviously both COP ignitions that are on the market for the EVO work, obviously.
We posted a thread a week or two ago about our intake manifolds/throttle bodies and the thread had good response. A few people asked about having more threads like that, here's another one
Dec 18, 2008, 04:47 PM
#11
Dec 18, 2008, 05:33 PM
#13
I don't think (although I am probably wrong) that anyone that is in need of a COP will still have the stock big battery in the car. The CDI box has 4 holes in it, so you can mount it to anything although it may take some fab work on your end. I've seen them ziptied to other battery kits, velcro'd to the battery too. The ground wire and positive wire are on the end of the harness, both go directly to the battery. If the battery is trunk mounted you will still end up with a junction box under the hood and a ground. There should also be a lot of extra room for mounting it where the battery use to be. If someone needs a special harness that is longer I am sure we could build it. Just ask.
Dec 18, 2008, 05:35 PM
#14
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I've been running your cop since the summer of 06 with no issues or complaints. The only time i ever get misfires is when my plugs are going out, i just swap them out and my car runs and drives great again. Too bad i cant say the same for the hks dli i had that misfired like crazy.
