GM buying from Electromotive??

Tomchou at aol.com Tomchou at aol.com
Sat Jan 25 20:12:55 GMT 1997


>From: john spears <speartec at iquest.net>
>In digest 28 David Doddek speaks of the merits of Electromotive. And while
>I'm glad your system is working well, your statements about GM buying direct
>fire systems from Electromotive are completely false. All Grand National
>direct fire systems from 1984 - 1987 are manufactured by Magnavox, and
>consist of a "coil pack" of three coils molded together. GM DIS systems came
>online, slowly,  in 1986 on 3.8L SFI engines, other than the Grand National.
>The GM DIS system eventually went on to be used on all of GM's DIS equipped
>engines, displacing Magnavox.      There was some early on development work
>done between the two companies (Electromotive and GM), but nothing ever came
>of it.  As the years went by, the only thing Electromotive supplied GM with
>was a bunch of pain in the ass, frivolous law suits.  

I can second John on this info - he definitely knows what he's talking about
when it comes to GM ignition systems! ;^)  To be more specific, his reference
to GM DIS systems refers to those individual Delco Remy coil packs (1 for 2
cylinders) with the Delco Electronics ignition module which the wiring
harness and coil packs attach to.   Now just about all the Delcos have been
combined under the Delphi name.  In the mid 80's Magnavox and Delco were 2
competing suppliers, and it happened that Magnavox was chosen for the GNs
while other 3.8L FWD cars had Delco, even though the Delco system have
slightly more energy.  The 2 are totally interchangeable except for mounting.
 In '88 with the introduction of the 3800 and a revised 18x/3x ignition
system, the Magnavox 18x/3x system had a cold start problem, and they were
eventually phased out - whether this was due to the cold start problem or
just a business/non-technical decision I don't know.  Be warned if you ever
encounter a '88 vintage 3800 with the Magnavox system that won't start in
cold weather!  My neighbor ('88 Bonneville) just experienced this.  

I believe the platform/powertrain divisions of GM may have tried to do some
early development work with Electromotive before going to Magnavox/Delco, but
I know the Delco ignition engineers well and I know their work was totally
original.  I'm not certain, but the coils on the Electromotive DIS sure look
like Delco Remys with the Electromotive label.  I'll bet they're sourced from
Remy (Delphi).  I've never used the Electromotive DIS, and it probably works
well, but I don't see why anyone would when you can get Magnavox/Delco DIS
from any salvage yard for next to nothing.





More information about the Diy_efi mailing list