Hey, everyone

I'll try to make this as short as possible, but there is a lot that has gone on in the past couple of days between me and various people of 123ignition so I will try my best. 

I will post copies of a pdf file containing the emails between the various employees of this company. I am pointing out now that I have intermediate experience in mechanics and engine building but there is a lot for me to learn still. This isn't really much of discussion on the fundamentals of timing, installation, etc. This is more so a post regarding quality of a product and quality of customer service. I ultimately don't want people to make the same mistake I made. I understand this can be a difficult situation for both parties and I will get more into that later.

Okay, moving forward. I recently installed a 260z 123ignition programmable bluetooth distributor. With this unit I purchased the coil of their recommendation, along with plugs and spark plug wires. This was to be installed two weeks before my vacation so I could have time to fine tune it and get ready for a big drive ahead. I made a post a week or so ago that I was hearing noises under the hood which was confirmed to be the water pump. I documented healthy compression and no damage to rod bearings at that time. The 123ignition is a pretty straight forward install, though they do not state that you need a timing light for this to be installed properly. You do. I have one and used one but the instructions state you rotate the distributor according to the direction your rotor within the cap rotates and stop once a light illuminates within the distributor. There is a small window you'd get this correct without a timing light. Other customers had this problem.

After installation is complete the car starts up no problem once timing is set. At this point I started having trouble with the app and that it had trouble reading the stock curve information from the app from time to time. This is not much of a problem as information is stored internally within the distributor. I take the car for a drive. Mapped out it was only an 8 minute drive. Within that small time frame, my cruising speed was cut prematurely by the smell of smoke. As I pulled over the engine was struggling to run. The app at this point was telling me there was no vacuum advance. Luckily I wasn't far from home and made it back.

Then my communication with the company begins. I will not post that here as it will be posted in a pdf link for everyone to read below. These emails mostly are asking information about their design of their product so I can get a better understanding of what may have happened. Did it lose vacuum? I just measured healthy compression a week ago, why would shortly after my drive a piston burn up? Issues within the distributor? Maybe this piston was on it's way out already? Both possible and I agreed that there were too many variables to prove. You can see in the emails at one point I tried to diffuse the situation before tensions got high and just stated I would like a refund. The conversation was continued by the director of this company, Ron, and that ultimately I was just trying to scam him. Fast forward and Ron has lost all contact with me. I was to deal with the person I bought it from. Fair enough. I spoke with Ed. Now Ed is a pretty nice guy and even after all this I do believe he is. Ed confirms that there is too many variables and again, I agree, hesitantly. I was told to package it and send it back for a refund in which I, of course, agreed. Upon getting ready for packaging and removing a bracket you must install to mount the distributor I heard something rattling in the inside. I remove the cap to find the coil contact had broken off completely. In that process caused marring inside of the cap meaning it bounced around a bit before falling to the bottom. Whether that can cause problems with misfires? You be the judge of that. It leads me to my point of the multiple times it lost advance in a 20 minute window. Roughly the combined time of adjustments at idle and the first and final test run. How can I be confident that the internals of this distributor can do it's intended purpose whenever the distributor cap can only do it's purpose for 8 minutes? I sent this photo to Ed and Ed did not respond. I called after almost a full business day in which Ed admitted that he did see the photo. Ed reassured me that what happened is normal to happen to a distributor. 

We can also note from the emails that after asking 3 times how these distributors work, my suspicions were confirmed that if this product was to fail electronically that it loses all advance. Not a terribly huge problem but this is where I'm starting to have more faith in old 40+ year distributors over a shiny new one. 

Ending this I feel sorry for Ed. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't know what to do either. You can only do so much in this situation, I guess. I certainly don't know if I would have went with his route in saying "well, I normally charge a restocking fee but I'm waiving that for you." I understand we install aftermarket parts at our own risks. Seeing as I am, I don't know, the 1% I can see how it can be chalked up to user error. After the facts I do disagree and I do think the product is at fault. Do I expect anyone to help replace my engine? No. It'd be nice to cover some cost of it but I'd prefer to replace my engine because of my own stupidity and mistakes. Not someone else's. 

This may rub some people the wrong way. I'm sure some with a good experience with Ed will try to blame me. I don't care honestly. I can't gain anything from this at this point. I just want to share my story and hopefully prevent anyone from doing the same.

If you spent the time to read this, thank you. 

The pdf is only edited to remove all personal information of both parties and to condense. There is a lot of quotes and signatures in the original. It's still a nightmare but only 4 pages and will revise later. Sorry about the watermarks.

123.pdf

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

You found what parts?  

Cap and rotor made by Bosch. The rubbish ones that came with it: 1 failed in use - centre electrode fell out, the second one was broken out of the box so not even used.

Rill Cosby hasn't been back since December of 2019.  I did notice another odd thing in his first post.

 

On 5/22/2019 at 9:46 PM, Rill Cosby said:

 

Okay, moving forward. I recently installed a 260z 123ignition programmable bluetooth distributor.

I made a post a week or so ago that I was hearing noises under the hood which was confirmed to be the water pump. I documented healthy compression and no damage to rod bearings at that time.

After installation is complete the car starts up no problem once timing is set.

I take the car for a drive. Mapped out it was only an 8 minute drive. Within that small time frame, my cruising speed was cut prematurely by the smell of smoke. As I pulled over the engine was struggling to run. The app at this point was telling me there was no vacuum advance. Luckily I wasn't far from home and made it back.

He apparently, according to the words on the page, installed the 123 directly after having the engine apart.  Must have had the oil pan off to check the rod bearings,  and must have changed the water pump. So a fair bit of disassembly.  Put it all back together, installed the 123, and cranked it up.   Then smelled smoke on the drive and the engine was struggling to run.

That sounds like overheating to me.  Breaking the rings on a single cylinder will cause the engine to run rougher but it will just keep going easily on 5 cylinders.  Might burn some oil but it will probably run okay, on 5 cylinders.  Seems like he did a repair and an "upgrade" at the same time, had a problem and blamed the upgrade.  But it might have been the repair.  Overheating can lead to detonation.  I wonder if he got it fixed and realized the true cause.  Who knows.

To add to the body of knowledge

I have decided to install a 123 on my 260z this thread has contributed to my decision, as I am highly curious of an upgrade potential: and adding complexity to the car doesn't deter me. My 280zx non-t dizzy upgrade was installed by PO many yrs ago with a reman unit, has failed. I would like to tune my engine with the app, and see the results. I will update when I can.

Edited July 6, 20213 yr by youztheclue

I have decided to install a 123 on my 260z this thread has contributed to my decision, as I am highly curious of an upgrade potential: and adding complexity to the car doesn't deter me. My 280zx non-t dizzy upgrade was installed by PO many yrs ago with a reman unit, has failed. I would like to tune my engine with the app, and see the results. I will update when I can.

You’ll enjoy the flexibility and the ability to immobilise yourself z via Bluetooth ! Much like removing the rotor in the old days!

Just triple check the HT lead positions on the cap before starting up for the first time to avoid this ....



.... baaaada boom!!!

Woooo!!!! what the h happened? did it back fire so hard it blow your engine?

Woooo!!!! what the h happened? did it back fire so hard it blow your engine?

The no.1 on the cap did not correspond with the position of the rotor. I didn’t check, I just trusted!! So when I put the leads back on the timing was somewhere between 270-290 degrees BTDC. She was struggling to start, so I gave her full choke, full throttle and ....... booooom!

The charge was compressed (read heated) but not lit, the exhaust valve opened and as the charge was being pushed out, it got a spark!!!! As it hit the muffler expansion area, it found even more oxygen.

4 neighbours rushed out to check if I was OK, promptly followed by my wife rushing out of the house to tell me off for making too much noise! Now that’s the essence of true love and a solid marriage.

I discovered weeks later that neighbours down the road, whom weren’t aware of my car antics, were still debating who had set off a shot gun in the road! :D

Ps. The engine was just fine and if you saw my recent exhaust muffler test videos you can see she’s still singing lovely 5 years later! ;)