AustrianVespaGuy

You've gotten lots of good specific advice already, so without trying to repeat much of that I'll make my comments more general starting from the table you posted: - You basically can use more advance, pretty much everywhere - For sure it'll idle nicer with a little more, try 12-15 and see - Steepen up the advance curve off-idle quite a bit, you can be all-in 30+ degrees by 2500 RPM, not 4000 RPM. - You should be able to add quite a bit more advance in the light-load areas - Even under load with only 9.5:1 pistons I'm pretty confident you can safely run even more advance than 32 degrees, however I'm less confident if doing so will gain you much power or not; so this might need some experimentation, or it's OK to just error on the side of caution and leave it in the 32-34 deg. area.

Points Condenser Points Condenser !

Well thanks all, seems to be a pretty clear mentality here! I'm *mostly* talked myself out of this, at least for the immediate future, but still trying to scheme a way to have my cake and eat it too, but that's a tough one. Ideally, I'd still get one as a 'replacement' for the E30 track rat instead, but that's much harder to frame as 'fiscally responsible,' and would force the new car to live outside in the driveway under a tree. . . ? To be honest, part of the problem is that I'm not driving the 2002 as much as I should/used to/want to. Maybe the REAL solution here is to just drop the Hagerty insurance and bring it back to DD duty?!?

As much as I like the RF, even a crappy 911 back seat is infinitely better than NO back seat, IMO (I have little kids I can cram back there too!) And as much as I liked the old Toyobarus, it was never really enough to tempt me. But with that new improved 2.4L engine. . . I think it's the first new car I've been *realistically* excited about since. . . the 128i maybe?

Well with the 9.5:1 pistons the 2002 gets 91 already, so I don't see 93 as a deal breaker, however you make a good point with it being BRAND new; maybe worth waiting a year to see. I too STRONGLY avoid dealerships at all costs. . . aside from free test drives of course!

I'll admit up front, I'm absolutely floored by the package that this new car embodies; 230 naturally-aspirated RWD horsepower through a standard 6-speed, including an LSD, all packed in to 2800# for only $28,000?!? I'm super enticed! Sadly there's not a 'have both' option here; mainly garage space, but there's also the fact of how crazy 2002 prices have gotten recently, it'd *almost* be a straight trade! What are the thoughts of my support group?!?

Yeah, the motor kinda is/has always been/always will be the easy part. Heck, you could get/make/adapt a great ~200HP motor 50 years ago for a car. But a high efficiency DC controller for such a motor is another story entirely, and then the batteries of course are the most expensive/most complex part of the whole operation. Electric motors are fantastic, but batteries down right suck: That's the basic conundrum of the 21st century. Now if someone ever puts together a kit with all 3 of those bits it'd be a lot more expensive but also a lot more interesting. I wonder what % of all those that bought that Ford motor are residents of California. . . ?

It's possible, but whether it does or doesn't you still just need to track down where the issue is. All of this stuff (wiper motor, switch, and I think even things like the cigarette lighter and hazard switch) runs together to a single big ground lug up under the dash. I forget exactly where but just look for where all of the brown wires come together and get bolted to the body. Start there and work backwards. Make sure you measure <1 ohm resistance from there to the switch, from the switch to the plug, and from the plug to the wiper motor. Somewhere in there, you'll find the broken/non-conductive section, and that'll be the answer!

Tangent: I agree, boo to ECS, keep to the smaller guys where possible. BUT. . . question: what's the community opinion on FCP Euro? I use them for most of my E39 part needs, because DAMN I love that warranty they offer! Free brake pads and rotors for life!

Ok, so the sample Audi coil I had was the 06EE905115 part number, and qualifies as one of the quick/small coils. It had a comparatively high energy output of 75mJ after only 2ms of dwell (most other coils are only around 50mJ at this point), however it quickly became fully saturated in under 3ms for a maximum of only 93mJ. Though I haven't tested one I actually don't expect the 4115 coil to behave significantly different from this. Won't know for sure without testing one, but so far I've observed that manufacturers' different coils tend to generally have basically the same curve/behavior as one another. So in summary, great coils for a high revving engine, but don't bother dwelling them more than 3ms and certainly adequate but nothing really special in the energy department.

. . . and I'm home and forgot to check, darn it, sorry! Writing myself a note to remember tomorrow. . .

Roger, will check my bin o' coils tomorrow and see if that's among them!

First check for 12V on the purple/black wires and solid black wire going to the motor with key on. If all good then check all the solid brown wires go to ground. Then start switching the stalk and see which terminals of the connector get either +12v or grounded with each position, and finally plug the relay back in and repeat the test at the 5-pin connector to see what gets switched 12v/ground with each stalk position. Between those activities, I expect you'll zero on on the suspicious wire/connector and have it figured out in no time!

Is that 60 degrees of crank or distributor rotation? I think you mean distributor but that seems like a lot; the numbers make more sense if that's crank degrees. But either way, with a static dwell dictated by points, that change in ~5 degrees is almost nothing compared to how much the dwell changes with RPM, and so the short answer to you question is still yes no matter what you set it to: RPM ms/rev ms dwell @60 deg ms dwell @ 65 deg 1000.0 60.0 10.0 10.8 2000.0 30.0 5.0 5.4 3000.0 20.0 3.3 3.6 4000.0 15.0 2.5 2.7 5000.0 12.0 2.0 2.2 6000.0 10.0 1.7 1.8 7000.0 8.6 1.4 1.5 (Double everything if dwell is indeed 60 degrees of cam rotation).

What's the P/N on them? Are they the red-topped R8 coils? If so, then those are in my batch of samples, so I can give you the whole charge/energy curve!

Absolutely, 100% correct. The amount of energy stored increases as the coil charges (dwells) until the point that it is saturated, or 'full.' At this point the charging current levels off, and the energy is converted to heat instead of stored (undesirable for various reasons). But the interesting points of comparison is both how much dwell different coils need before they are fully saturated, and also how much energy they have accumulated at various dwell intervals up UNTIL they are fully saturated. So a small coil might only hold say 75mJ of energy and is fully saturated after 3.5ms of dwell. Contrasted with a big coil like the IGN1A which holds >200mJ (crazy!) and isn't saturated until 9ms! But then if you look at the 3ms mark, the small coil might already be close to full with say 65mJ, but firing the IGN1A that early only nets you a 50mJ spark (things aren't linear). I'll try to remember to grab a scope shot at work one day soon to share here, since we're on the topic and all. EDIT: Er, sorry, apparently we're on page 2 now, and this was answered already, sorry! Good observation and an important one but for a totally different reason: timing. Let's say you have total control over your ignition, such as with an aftermarket ECU or a 123 distributor or something, and for whatever reason you want to run some crazy timing like 50 degrees BTDC. So you dial things in, charge your coil up to it's max 5ms dwell, and trigger it to fire at 50DBTDC Cyl#1: What happens? BAM! The coil discharges and the energy runs along the HT lead from the coil to the center of the distributor, down the spring pin in the middle of the cap and then into the rotor. But then. . . where's that rotor pointed? Well, it's like 2/3 of the way between the plug wire terminals for cylinders 2 and 1, and if it has the narrow point on it, then it's not touching either. . . and nothing happens! The narrow end is only in contact with the #1 cylinder post for maybe the -10-30degBTDC, and a wider one will buy you up to say -15-45 deg. Make sense?

No, just the pure energy discharge in mJ as a function of dwell time. And the IGN1As indeed have a HELLACIOUS amount of energy to throw, but as expected it does take some time to actually fill them up with all that good spark juice first! They don't really get off the ground until 4ms, and they don't get saturated until 9ms! Point being it would be a waste to try to feed a distributor with one at 2-3ms dwell, but as long as you're at least wasted spark or COP and you want to be DARN sure that spark is going to jump your fat gap no matter what, then yeah they're awesome!

Finally got registered in the nick of time, so I should be there!

This is the key trade-off right here. I'm actually doing some testing for work on how much spark energy several different modern(-ish) coils can deliver. Will link when posted, but at any rate think of 'em like little buckets of energy. You fill (dwell) them up, and then you dump (spark) them! Smaller buckets don't hold as much, but you can fill them up faster. Bigger buckets take longer to fill up, and with a distributor where you're dumping the same bucket 4x into four different cylinders, this matters. Also don't over-fill them, because that makes a mess! So the blue coil is a fine little bucket for a stock-ish engine. Just don't expect it to still cut it at 7000 RPM with forced induction.

Switched 12v to the coil + from the ignition switch. Solid green wire or run your own from the back of the first panel. Make sure it's NOT fused. No ballast resistor with the blue coil. Coil - goes to points and also to the tach.

Lol, had to link this just yesterday too. Read my article on the whole headlight circuit, then decide if you want to redo it from the crappy factory way to my much-improved way, and add any extra lights you desire along the way!

While at least for the fogs most of the instructions have you use a proper relay, if you're going down this road I suggest doing it in tandem with rewiring/upgrading your main headlights as well. Easiest when done together. I made a (slightly extensive but really good) tech article on the whole system including options for adding fogs and/or driving lights here:

Yes, that's exactly what I thought, as Jetronic is the name of that whole 'system.' - DON'T use a 1980's DME for a new turbo build. - DO use any of the modern ECUs that you like, except for Chinese knockoffs. Haltech is Australian and just fine. - DO use any of the other OE hardware that you want, such as manifolds, fuel rails, throttle bodies, etc. That's all fine stuff. Put on that crank trigger wheel and go for it! And sorry for the confusion

While I buy a lot of stuff from ebay, I generally don't trust ebay exhaust parts to fit up very nicely. I do like that it comes with the heat shield gasket though, get one of those no matter what header you put on! In terms of preference, I don't like that real long runner 4-1 style, and instead prefer the 4-2-1 'tri-Y' designs for the street. I think the SuperSprint that came on my car is to die for, but I'd probably never spend that kind of money on a header, and would most likely buy the IE version if I were shopping today: https://www.iemotorsport.com/product/street-track-tri-y-style-header-2002/ Interestingly, 2002AD seems to also have it listed for a lot less? @AceAndrew any insight on that relationship? https://www.2002ad.com/storeworks/view_item.cfm?id=2553

All correct, but. . . Jetronic, yikes! Fine for its OEM applications, when it was OEM, but if you're going through the effort to turbo I'd say go with something modern and programmable so that you actually have control over the thing! I'm a Megasquirt guy and others here use Haltech, either is fine, AEM is probably OK too. I have never heard of this Emerald thing either, and EFI is my bread and butter. If you've already got it, give it a go and report back to us how you like it!