Crank Trigger Install on 94/95 302/351 setup

[moneypit94]

I searched and searched for options on a crank trigger for a 94/95 serpentine belt type setup. After hours of searching the only direct bolt on kit i saw was over $700 from inovatorswest.com which was a balancer with magnets machined on the front and some expensive brackets and sensor.

I had bought a holley crank trigger kit off my tuner at a discount but found that -64 tuning concepts had a kit on ebay i could have used for bit cheaper i believe.

First obstical i ran into was that the underdrive pulleys caused a clearance issue, specifically the larger waterpump pulley. I found the stock one with a smaller belt worked for me. i think i could have had the outside lip machined back a 1/4" and been fine but was happy about the thought of speeding water pump up a bit.

Next i had a machine shop machine off like 3/4 of an inch off the mounting serface and extend the threads. I unfortunately do not remember brand of balancer I have. I think its a romac but cant remember. This much had to be machined off to get crank trigger wheel to fit between balancer and pulley.

Due to mounting offset of the pulley a custom aluminum spacer was made by the machine shop. There is about 0.020 between crank trigger wheel and the non mountable part of balancer.

I then had to cut about 5/8" off the spacers of the holley mounting brackets for hall effect sensor so it lined up right.

Last part was kind of crude but had to make a new timing pointer. Some paint and rounding and smoothing out edges and it wouldnt look so bad.

I am just posting this because i found virtually no info on people putting a crank trigger on a SN95 serpentine waterpump setup. Unless you spent $700+. My machine shop charged me $150 and i could have bought the ebay kit from -64 bit tuning for about $250.

 

[moneypit94]

I guess i didnt explain why I am converting to a crank trigger setup. My setup is a twin turbo 427. I have been fighting with what looks like ignition problems for years now. I finally got fed up with the TFI ignition system and I am going with the holley smart coils and running a coil near plug system. I have a holley dominator efi system. I am going to use my tfi distributor as a cam sensor by cutting out all the teeth except one on the reluctor wheel. Without running a cam sensor you have to run a waste spark setup. I had an msd 6+ box and a hvc 2 blaster coil. i went from 325 NA (pipe blew off the run before and didnt catch it) to 580 with 6psi to 680 at 13psi and really start to hear misfires between 15-20 psi with no power gains at all with plugs capped at .020. Im excited to utuilize the dwell table and crank it a bit during higher rpms and boost. This car should be over 900 at the wheels around 20 psi. Another option would have been to use a duel sync distributor. This would have worked but a crank trigger has a higher degree of precise timing.

 

[jozsefsz]

Pretty cool stuff, probably out of the league of most of us here running ~10psi on 302's. For that level of boost, the TFI with a decent coil (anything but MSD in my opinion) and down-gapped plugs is more than adequate. TFI blaster was a joke, spark blow-out all day long until it found its proper home in the dumpster. Appreciate the info though if I ever decide to get wild with the old horse.