Who has installed a MSD DIS-4?

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douglas vincent
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Who has installed a MSD DIS-4?

Post by douglas vincent »

My brother gave me one for free out of his wrecked jetta. Has anyone used one in their legacy and did it work well? ie improvement?
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Post by vrg3 »

The one appropriate for our cars is the DIS-2, and it works really really well. I love it. I definitely feel like it runs better and smoother and a little stronger. I know when Dave put his in when he had his turbo wagon he actually managed to hit the ECU's rev limiter before his automatic transmission could shift.

You should be able to use the DIS-4; just leave the extra two channels unused. I don't know whether it'd be better to carefully insulate the two unused triggers (the risk is that if they contact ground and then break the ground connection it'll try to spark) or if it would be better to securely connect them to ground (the risk is that if they get disconnected it'll try to spark). If it tries to spark you'll get high voltage at the unused outputs. So in any case, insulate the unused outputs carefully. If it were me I'd probably ground the two unused inputs.
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Post by vrg3 »

Oh, wait... Dude, just hawk the DIS-4 on eBay and buy a DIS-2 on eBay. You'll make a little money on the deal.
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Post by Legacy777 »

Yeah I have the dis-2 as well. Excellent piece of hardware. I've hit the rev-limiter when mine was auto as well. Scared the hell out of me until my brain caught up and figured out what happened.
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Post by J-MoNeY »

What goes into putting one of these units on?
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Post by vrg3 »

You have to figure out how to mount it, and then you basically just splice it in between the car's harness and the coil pack:

http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~v/pics/dis2_wiring.png
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Post by douglas vincent »

I may have to give it back eventually, so I will just ground out the extra leads.

Thanks
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1990 wagon, EJ25 12.3 @ 116.5 FAST Family wagon getting new motor soon
1992 wagon, wifes daily, high compression
1992 Touring wagon, should I keep it?
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Post by greg donovan »

vrg3 wrote:Oh, wait... Dude, just hawk the DIS-4 on eBay and buy a DIS-2 on eBay. You'll make a little money on the deal.
right now the DIS-4 is going for around 200 while the DIS-2 is a bit over 300.
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Post by vrg3 »

That's not how it usually ends. You may be comparing new and used units or something. Used DIS-2s usually end somewhere around 200-225 and used DIS-4s usually end almost at 300.
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Post by greg donovan »

vrg3 wrote:That's not how it usually ends. You may be comparing new and used units or something. Used DIS-2s usually end somewhere around 200-225 and used DIS-4s usually end almost at 300.
now that i look again they are new 2s and used 4s. i may have to keep an eye out for a good used DIS-2 later this year.
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Post by DLC »

I'll probably put another one of these in my new car, because it had such a good effect on the wagon.
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Post by vrg3 »

When you do, Dave, you'll probably have to do some monkeying with the ignition system, since I believe your factory ignition setup has the ignitor built into the coil pack. That's no good for the DIS-2 since the DIS-2 has to go between the ignitor and coil pack. It should be pretty straightforward to retrofit an old-school ignition control system to your car though. Let me know if you need help figuring it out.
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Post by Legacy777 »

Actually....if you have the coil on plug setup, that's probably the best setup. So I'd just leave it.
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Post by vrg3 »

I don't think he does have coil-on-plug -- as far as I know the only Subaru 4-cylinders with COP are turbos -- but even if he did, why would standard coil-on-plug be better than waste spark with a super-duper capacitive discharge ignition?
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Post by DLC »

That's a good call vrg3, i hadn't considered the placement of the ignitor. I'll have to poke around and see if that is indeed the case.
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Post by QuickDrive »

Would one of these do anything for gas mileage at all?

I'm hurtin here on mileage and anything that can be done will help.
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Post by Legacy777 »

I guess I say that from what I've heard.....I have no data to support that theory....not too many people want to rip off the coil on plugs and put on a MSD.

Quickdrive.....it'll probably help mileage a little, but it's not going to be dramatic. If your mileage is really bad, you probably have another problem.
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Post by DLC »

I can honestly say that mine improved after installing it. My car always got 19-21MPG, and maybe a bit better if the majority was highway traffic. As i've mentioned before, i used to be able to pass a sniffer test on the car with NO cats, and i'm absolutely certain the DIS-2 helped that happen.
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Post by vrg3 »

Count the number of pins at the coil pack connector; that should make it clear. If it's 3, it's got a separate ignitor. If it's 4, it's got an integrated ignitor. I'm almost certain it'll be 4.
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Post by dzx »

I like it and i get about 250 miles for a tank of gas with my 16G. I've got the DIS-2 tho, picked it up off of ebay for 190. Really easy to install too.
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Post by douglas vincent »

Well, 3-4 hours later, the damn thing dont work.

What a pain in the ass. I dont know if I screwed up or if the DIS-4 is screwed up. I am about 100% sure it is installed correctly but who fucking knows!?!?!?!

I work on it agina tommorrow and see what happens.

I clipped the coil connectors off another intake so I can just bypass the DIS-4 setup and drive the car normal until it works.
Reddevil, Awaiting new heart, will it ever happen?
1990 wagon, EJ25 12.3 @ 116.5 FAST Family wagon getting new motor soon
1992 wagon, wifes daily, high compression
1992 Touring wagon, should I keep it?
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Post by J-MoNeY »

Most of my wiring mishaps have been because of a bad ground.
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Post by vrg3 »

1) Make sure you didn't accidentally mix up the inputs and outputs:

The trigger wires (that go to the ignitor) are white and green.

The output wires (that go to the coil pack) are brown/white and brown/green.

2) Make sure the ignition interrupt wire (brown) is not connected to ground.

3) Make sure the DIP switches are set to:

SW1: OFF, OFF, OFF, ON, ON, ON, ON
SW2: all OFF
SW3: all OFF
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Post by douglas vincent »

Works now.

A- had some wires backwords to start with.

B- Fixed that, still didnt work

C- Double checked everything, started again, major backfire. Tried again, weird noises.

D- hmmmmm... Lets just switch the input wires. YESSSSSS.

It was firing opposite cylinders. Now it fires on the correct cylinders.

Just drove it around the block and it didnt blow up.

I will "test" it later today.
Reddevil, Awaiting new heart, will it ever happen?
1990 wagon, EJ25 12.3 @ 116.5 FAST Family wagon getting new motor soon
1992 wagon, wifes daily, high compression
1992 Touring wagon, should I keep it?
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Post by vrg3 »

Hehe. Cool.

I looked at the manual, and it turns out the recommended way to deal with unused channels is to ground the inputs and seal the outputs. So you should ground the yellow and purple wires, and seal the brown/yellow and brown/purple wires.
"Just reading vrg3's convoluted, information-packed posts made me feel better all over again." -- subyluvr2212
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