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Hello all,

I rarely post anything about a specific vendor because most of them are pretty good and decent as we all expected. However, CB Performance has done above and beyond what I expected.

As some of you know, I had issues with the engine dying while going to SLO this year. On the way home, I lost count how many time it just suddenly no rev on the engine only to come back up 2-3 seconds later (if I was lucky). A couple of time I had to stop and wait a few minutes before starting again. I even had to change my coil to another coil during the trip back home. People diagnosed it as heat related at that time.

When I got home, I bought a new coil because it is cheaper than buying the Magnaspark Digital distributor. I like the digital version because I can tune the advance curve not just due to RPM, but also by load (via vacuum reading). I contacted CB at that time and they asked me how it was working after I changed the coil which was running as well as before.

However, after about 3 months, it started to die again, so I contacted CB Performance again because the coil is new, so it should not be the coil (you hope). Mark came back and he said that some of the electronic on the distributor might need to be changed. So I sent back the distributor to them.

Mark actually replaced my digital distributor with a new digital distributor because Mark said my distributor was acting erratically on the high RPM. Mark gave me that and a coil just to be sure with an updated software. Alas, it did not work and it was actually worse. It keep dying even with the base map and some phone calls to trouble shoot.

So the distributor went back to CB Performance and Mark replaced that with the Magnaspark distributor (advance locked) and the Black Box digital. After finally figuring out the wiring (not as simple as the digital distributor as it is more versatile). The car started, but it won’t connect to my old Dell laptop running Window XP.

Back to calling Mark which by now we are on first name basis, he patiently walk me through on how to get the black box to talk to my old Dell laptop so I can create the map which I believe is more suitable than the base map for my car.

So to Mark and the CB Performance team, two thumbs up to you for your service and I hope you keep up the great service.

Eddy

1957 JPS Coupe #3

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With the black box you can create your timing map based on rpm and the intake vacuum (which roughly represent the load the engine is doing). Just imagine that the engine is turning 3000 rpm, the load when it is cruising at that rpm and the load when you are going uphill or downhill on that rpm will be different. Therefore the ignition timing should also be different. How different, that is the trick as a rule of thumb if the load is light, you can have bigger advance for better fuel economy, but if the load is higher, you need to pull back the advance, otherwise it will knock. If you have money, you can create your own basic map on a dyno, however, I still believe doing it on the road has its value. I did it just by driving the car on the road and having a laptop to adjust the timing map. So far so good. My only concern is the heat in the engine compartment, however, Mark only mentioned that I need to make sure the black box is not soaked in the water

I have a Black Box, I like it, and I'd buy it again-- but if you're expecting a lot with the vacuum input acting as a load input, you're going to be disappointed. A TPS would be much better, but it isn't possible.

The controller can (and often is) used in boosted applications, so the input range for manifold pressure (or vacuum) is pretty wide, and doesn't really pick up the minute differences in vacuum in a NA engine with lots of cam overlap.

Other than that, I really like it. It's an amazing bit of kit for the money.

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