ClassicRetroFit CDI Box Feedback

[DarthMJH]

Since Castle Hedingham last year I have been thinking of buying the ClassicRetroFit CDI box. Speaking to Jonny and Martin that day they were both enthusiastic about the product and said it would improve the performance of the car.

Threads kept popping up from Jonny on DDK about the product and I'm thinking shall I, shan't I. Then I read this thread viewtopic.php?f=9&t=56079 about weber overhaul and setup. I then decided to bite the bullet as my Webers are not running particularly great at the moment, tick over is very sporadic and one bank is spitting back. I am also doing the Wales run with other DDK'ers after the RS day at Oulton Park, so wanted the car to run better.

I called Jonny and he was very passionate about the product and spent a good time on the phone explaining the product and how it would give a double spark which should improve the cars performance. I was sold. I went for the basic unit with tacho feed and gear shift light. He recommended his colleague Martin to set the carbs up and tweak the CDI unit. But said I should notice an improvement without any tweaking. He set the rev limiter for me and shipped it out for next day delivery.

It came delivered is this nice box:


I went to Chris Turner's (butzi) yesterday who assisted fitting the unit. Thank you Chris, much appreciated. Jonny gave me a courtesy call that morning to see how it was going. The unit was a direct swap for mine. Chris advised to remove the relay board as it is easier to swap remove \ fit the CDI unit, which I did.

The unit fitted:



After Chris set the timing correctly the car settled to nice even tick over, I then took it for a drive. Unfortunately the roads round there aren't the best (speed ramps), however there is one stretch of road I can open her up.

I can say there is a marked improvement, the car runs a lot smoother on acceleration through all the gears and is more responsive to the throttle. I took it up and down that road a good few times as I was enjoying it so much. I am still getting some spitting through the carb and tick over is sometimes a little lower than it should, but not as frequent. However this is more likely down to the setup of the carbs, which Martin should be able to sort out.

I'm looking forward to the DDK trip to really put the car through it's paces, for two reasons. 1, the CDI box and 2, the suspension setup from Center Gravity (which I have mentioned in other threads).

I'm not affiliated to Jonny just a happy customer.

Mike

[Bootsy]

Great to hear. Must say I'm very tempted by one

[hot66]

As Bootsy says, nice to hear good things about these

[Gary71]

I'm tempted just for the cool box

[yoda]

Good to hear of your practical experience with it. Do you mind me asking how much it was and how long it took to fit / set up?

Thanks

[DarthMJH]

Good to hear of your practical experience with it. Do you mind me asking how much it was and how long it took to fit / set up?

Thanks

Price are here: http://www.classicretrofit.com/products ... ml#screen2

All in all it took about an hour, but most of that was removing / fitting the unit. Setup of the unit (timing) was a few minutes.

[Jonny Hart]

Thanks for the write-up Mike!

[Jonny Hart]

Been on the dyno today with a couple of SC's. The dyno is a Maha and is operated by CCK Historic in the UK.

First up, we have a lovely completely stock 204HP Euro 1982SC with 67000 miles on the clock.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AHPTee7ZVm0?rel=0

The car put out a very respectable 197 BHP (corrected). The dyno runs are totally repeatable, give or take a small percentage. We ran the stock Bosch ignition which is the thin trace, then our unit which is the thick trace. We made no ignition timing adjustments to our unit at all.

The results were surprising. Above 2400 RPM the traces are almost identical. Below this, however, our CDI+ shows a noticeable increase in torque starting 400 RPM earlier at 2000 RPM. This may go some way to explaining why our units make the cars feel more 'driveable' and quicker on the shift down overtake:



Next up was my similar spec SC but with 964 cams, SSIs, sports exhaust and a custom ignition map in our CDI+ unit.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Yw-urZ7Bbg?rel=0

On the road, my car is noticeably quicker in 0 to 80mph sprint than stock. The interesting thing to note is that the headline BHP is still ~200HP but look at the torque when compared to standard:



An interesting day all round!