Thread: Lucas ignition amplifier replacement by Bosch 024

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You need several square inches of nice thick aluminium bolted firmly to the front panel as in the pic.

A heatsink can never be tooo big.

hi guys

just a little confused.
bought a bim024 and a MEC717
do i put the condenser back on with these?,
did someone leave the condenser off?
as your cylinder coils in pics on this thread still have them on,

pls explain, &thanx

Originally Posted by curious4h20

hi guys

just a little confused.
bought a bim024 and a MEC717
do i put the condenser back on with these?,
did someone leave the condenser off?
as your cylinder coils in pics on this thread still have them on,

pls explain, &thanx

The condenser fitted to the +ve coil connection is a radio interference suppressor, so should go back on, it does no harm to the ignition.

hi bee utey and LR lovers



after reading on here about your conversion to Bosch from Lucas, and feeling what i thought was the occasional miss, i took the plunge and planned a conversion.
When looking over the disco, looking at the future job, i notice that my earth strap to the ignition heat sink was floating(not attached) on the chassis.
I then went and bought a MEC717 (made in china) and BIM024 (made in japan from repco. so I had the real Bosch)
i pulled the lucas bits out so i could measure up the heatsink for attachment holes, heatsink is a 10mm aluminum thick plate which use to be a bracket. i put the Lucas system back together this time with the earth strap bolted on.
drove to town and back, it felt a little better, and smoother, well i thought.
I drew the existing wiring system for future reference, and noticed that the lucas coil was back to front. ie 12v and condenser on the negative terminal
i then did the conversion to the Bosch coil and BIM024 and earth strap
I followed the existing wiring and no-go,
I put the 12v wire and condenser to the +ve as bee utey stated and away we go.
i then travelled to hospital and back with the top hose on the radiator splitting on my Road,lucky me, with the engine getting a bit hot lol
Next morning after shortening the hose, i tried to get the car started. no spark, sometimes it would turn, other times totally dead.
stuffed around for a day, doing a battery charge and going thru RAVE and online here. tried everything.
was even considering i had cooked something, looked up stuff on security alarm thingy too.
all results indicated i had stuffed my BIM024 after 26 km

My wife said take off the earth-strap, which i did, away we go again, motor running. hopefully for a long time. went down block and back, seems best yet, but time will tell. now the timing.

So what I'm asking is, Is the earth strap a common problem, or is this a symptom of another problem?

The earth strap IMO is for the shielding of the pickup wires, it shouldn't make a lot of difference unless the pickup wires are too close to the alternator or ignition leads. As for no-go, check that the air gap in the pick-up is around 0.005" as the BIM024 needs a slightly better signal to fire than the Lucas one. Also all your crimp terminals should require a bit of force to pull off, wriggle them on after squashing slightly with pliers. Hopefully your heatsink and module are securely earthed by being bolted cleanly to a metal body part, otherwise run a copper wire to a suitable bolt head either on the block or battery. Heat sink paste shouldn't be around the screw earthing the pad on the module.

yep all lugs bend the terminals on the bim024, if i try and remove them. thats how the tiny hole in the heat shrink got there trying to put them on

also has no resistance between earth lug from dizzy and body of car. the screws go through the aluminum block, then the car body and then nutted off. i didnt trust my thread i cut into the aluminum, i tapped it with a broken hand, so i could have done better,
so to make sure the BIM024 didn't leave the heat sink i nutted it on the side of the light section(drilled some holes), plus the original bolts that connected the original lucas coil and module for other earthing of aluminum block,

I can live with the earth strap being there for a shielding for the wires. so lets hope it starts again tomorrow,& forever lol

thanks for your advice and tutorial

The Disco developed a slight miss on the road about a month ago, took it up the beach and got it hot and the miss became " jeez are we going to get home".
A quick read here and i diagnosed a case of LUCAS DISEASE.
Bought a new BIM 024 & MEC 717 coil ($120.00) and did the transplant last weekend. What a difference, miss gone and definitely more power.
Thanks bee utey for the great "How To", your the go to man, the Dali Lama of D1 electrics in my eyes.
Sparky

Hi Bee Utey and others,

Have been fault finding a poor running 4.6 that I recently put into my range rover. Only runs 95 and 98 octane (no gas system)
I have spent about 4 hours all up now adjusting the fuelling (Haltech interceptor) and am now looking at the ignition.

I have already tried two sets of good magnecor KV85 leads, and change spark plugs what seems like 287 times (NGK BP6ES I think).
Swapped out cap and rotors.

Next on my list was to fit the A & R power amp I have along with a new coil (standard DLB198).
Then following that have the dissy re-graphed and overhauled (or replaced).

So I already have the coil and power amp and I want to install them but I noticed that Ward at Graeme Cooper automotive has used a different module when they remote mounted my existing unit.
My car is fitted with a Mitsubishi branded module, labeled J121, it only has three pin outs. One goes to -Ve & to ground (I think) the other two are the feed from the dissy (red and black).... that is all.

Car has run fine with the old engine (that I was aware of) and only now seems to be running a bit ordinary with the 4.6.

What confused me is the lack of +12v connection to the module and duplicate ground -ve connection.

The coil has an iginition feed to the +ve, it also has a couple of other connectors that I am going to assume are not required (parts of the existing old loom).

The module is as shown below;


Before I go hacking into the system, I want to assure myself that I can just install my module as per the standard instruction sets and only require the ignition feed and Neg out put to ECU pin 39?
All in an effort to do away with all the other no longer associated wiring.

Am awaiting a call back from Ward and will update this thread with my results.
In failing all this I will go down the BIM024 and replacement coil path!

Cheers
Grimace