I "No Lift"'s comment in bad540's thread on the Street/Strip 455 board saying that you could run the s-4 box in sequence with other ignitions, I'm interested to know how. Would there be contention between the two? I bought that 73 Stage 1 out of the Mojave desert about 6 years ago, it came with a beautiful S-4 system bought over the counter at K-B, but during the troubleshooting phase I took it out and put in a Pertronix III - wanted the rev limiter and I knew what to expect out of it. Now I'm thinking - can I use that box with the retard feature with the Petrinix III as the pickup and module? Would there be a conflict between the two units? I've heard the S-4 weakens the spark somehow, but I'm trying to figure out how if it doesnt stand between coil and cap... Love to know your thoughts on this
I've never heard that Stinger S4.weakens the spark. I think it may have gotten a bad rep for two reasons. 1) must have a 0.5 ohm coil and 2) no rev limiter. I'm told that Pertronix offers a 0.6 ohm coil but haven't confirmed it. S4 will make more power than a non retarding MSD. I've been running an S4 for a long time and like it. It has inductive spark like most modern ignition systems and a lot of it. You will need a resistor with it, pure 12v+ on it will cause issues.
I got this from Mike (No Lift) a few years ago. The Stinger gets the signal from the magnetic sender in the dist like normal. The Stinger wire that normally goes to the minus terminal of the dist. goes to the points(white?) input wire on the MSD. No connections are made to the magnetic input to the MSD. The red Stinger wire goes to the normal ignition switched wire. Use whatever coil the MSD likes. That's what's nice about this, you don't need a special coil, you get the retard function, and the big MSD spark. I found out how bad the spark is from the S4 way back when I used nitrous. Couldn't make it down the track without all kind of misfires from the S4. Hooked up the MSD and perfect every run. Mike
My reply to Rob reply pretty much hits it on the head but unfortunately only for the MSD boxes. The problem with the Pertronix is that the magnetic pickup is built into the module. With only two wires coming out plus the ground inside the distributer there is no way to separate the pickup from the electronics. That is what you need to do to utilize the S4. It has to be the first thing the mag pickup drives and then the S4 would drive the high power Pertronix module which then drives the coil. It can't go the other way around because you would lose the multi-spark and the ability to drive any type of coil(with more output also). That's a shame because in my experience the S4 works in all the Buick engines I've had(especially with MSD box) including my current 10.90 '76. It really shines on milder setups with less gear and converter adding midrange power and that is why I recommend it for most street setups.
Thanks Mike and Rob, appreciate the quick responses - That's pretty much what I figured... the good news is I still have the set up including the pickup, so I can drop the whole unit back in, I just lose my rev limiter.
