Resolved Dynatek Arc-2 problems

[gsx4g64]

Whats going on Guys and Girls? I having serious issues with the Arc-2. The first one that I had stopped firing all four coils (coil on Plug). Sent it in, and they sent me another box. I think that its refurb'd. but they claim that it is brand new. So' i put it on the car, an it fires up. That the car on the road and it would boost past 12psi. So, i put on the stock coils and it went to 30psi. i put back on the COP setup, and nothing. I have no tried to run the stock coils without the Arc-2, but i think that the stock coils are allowing the car run the higher bosst numbers.

How can you tell if the Arc-2 is working correctly?

Does anyone know what the new Arc-2 boxs looks like. Is the entire case blue, or is it blue and black?

Any help would be nice.

 

[slowgsr]

I have an arc2 on my car.. the box is all blue. I purchased probably march 2010. Wow.. its going to be 2011 soon, time is FLYING. Anyways... back on topic.

Why not just run the arc2 with the stock coilpack? It will work better then COP with the arc2. I don't know what else to tell you, I love my arc2, it works great. If your really having troubles.. get it sent back in again, get a new one and sell it and spend $600 on the M&W pro12.

So from what your saying.. with the COP & Arc2 you CAN'T run 30psi.. but when you run the stock coilpack and the Arc2 you CAN run 30psi?

 

[gsx4g64]

I have an arc2 on my car.. the box is all blue. I purchased probably march 2010. Wow.. its going to be 2011 soon, time is FLYING. Anyways... back on topic.

Why not just run the arc2 with the stock coilpack? It will work better then COP with the arc2. I don't know what else to tell you, I love my arc2, it works great. If your really having troubles.. get it sent back in again, get a new one and sell it and spend $600 on the M&W pro12.

So from what your saying.. with the COP & Arc2 you CAN'T run 30psi.. but when you run the stock coilpack and the Arc2 you CAN run 30psi?

I was able to run 40psi with the coil on plug and arc-2. My spark plug gap was at 20. The arc-2 stop firing two cylinders. Sent the box in and I got another one sent to me. Regapped the plugs to 25. Npw the car won't go pass to 12psi.

I put the stock coils on with the arc-2, and was able to get to 30psi. But, I would be able to get 30psi without the arc-2.

Before, the car the was beyond happy. I wish there was a way to tell if it was working correctly.

 

[ramsack]

Then stay away from the COP. It's obvious that's the problem and they're not as good as stock coils. I had an arc-2 and it died on me too. I just gave up on it and gave it away.

 

[dsmmack]

A local guy here is on his 2nd ARC-2 box in as many years.

First one just stopped working. the 2nd one started having the 2step cut in when the two step was not engaged, as well as intermittent no-starts. Unplugged the box and went straight to the coils and would be fine.

None to impressed with them.

 

[ramsack]

I think their problem is heat dissipation. Mine would get pretty damn hot. Maybe they would last inside the cabin, but 500v traveling through that much wire wouldn't be very productive.

 

[slowgsr]

If my arc2 fails I'll have it fixed, sell it and go to a m&w unit. If I were you, stay with stock coils and the arc2

 

[gsx4g64]

Its just crazy to think that the arc-2 is acting crazy. They said they sent me a brand unit. It starts the car with no problems. Driving around is okay, except it doesn't seem to have that kick down low as it did with my old box. It kills me that I am no longer getting a benefit to having this box. Does the tach adapter have anything to with this problem?

 

[NightRider97]

I've had mine for 2 years, maybe 3 and I'm on my 4th box. And to be honest I think my 4th one is taking a crap on me as well. I believe I was one of the first members here to run the ARC2 on a COP setup. Man oh man does it run good with the ARC2 when the unit is new, but it seems like I can only get about 5k miles out of a box before it goes bad.

I haven't driven my car much in the last couple years, this is the first year I've put this many miles on it and have gone through 2 boxes this year alone. Usually I run mine with it stuttering and bucking for a few days until I know for sure its bad when the car wont even accelerate at all anymore.

I'm running an early sparktech cop setup, back when they were an "out of their garage" kind of shop but I have no doubt its a quality part nonetheless. If built properly a COP setup should run just as well as your stock coils and ignition wires.

 

[gsx4g64]

I thought I would come back to this thread and let you guys know what I found. the harness I had went bad. Raymond from Dynatec worked with me for countless days until we got it resolved.

 

[ramsack]

They should have made the plug for the dynatek smaller. I felt mine went bad because of the wires being taped tight at the connector, so maybe after all it was just that the harness went bad. I have no idea, maybe I can get it back since I just gave it away to a friend.

 

[rx7ttlm]

ok, so by switching out the coils you have isolated the component that's causing problems. so since there are a lot of things that can go wrong with the install of the COP. Lets start with the basics, have you removed the plug boots and inspected them for white spots? Basicly if moisture or air can get in and out, then spark can too. So I would guess that your leaking spark from the boots. 702429 is the napa part number for the boots, 4 of them costs like 20 bucks. YouTube - 4g63 Coil On Plug 201 with some dielectric grease should fix your lil problem if its not the coils or the wiring. But I think this is most common. Check each pin for ohms, I think its like 1.2ohms / pin and both are about 2.4. Check for exposed wire/ solder etc on the wiring.

and dynatek sucks, get the M&w box, or the MSD. They all have better parts and support. I have been dealing with dynatek on my new arc2, its been 3 months and they still haven't done crap. Its taken like a month for them to say ok we will give you your money back. But I haven't seen shit.

 

[gsx4g64]

They should have made the plug for the dynatek smaller. I felt mine went bad because of the wires being taped tight at the connector, so maybe after all it was just that the harness went bad. I have no idea, maybe I can get it back since I just gave it away to a friend.

once they are working correctly, they are not bad units. They do give out a stronger spark. I think that you should use this with the stock coils. The 300m & dodge intrepid do not charge fast enough to provide you with a better spark.

This may be due voltage drop at higher boost levels.

 

[ramsack]

Coils don't charge up on CDI ignitions. A capacitor charges and then dumps all its energy at once into the coil and it sparks immediately. I wouldn't ever use a 2-channel CDI in waste spark on 4 coils. I don't know if you are referring to me saying I should use stock coils, because I did. I won't ever go COP until I can get an engine computer that has 4 channels for sequential spark. I don't know if I'd want to bother with two Dynateks or just go with a DIS-4. Dynatek should make an ARC-4!

 

[gsx4g64]

I agree with you. I will be staying with the oem coils.

 

[ramsack]

How is Dynatek with dealing with customers fairly? I bought mine off a person with an Evo, so I had to use that harness to concoct my own. I wonder if I could send them the whole thing and get back a DSM harness for free or cheaper. The Evo mounting bracket was also different.

 

[gsx4g64]

How is Dynatek with dealing with customers fairly? I bought mine off a person with an Evo, so I had to use that harness to concoct my own. I wonder if I could send them the whole thing and get back a DSM harness for free or cheaper. The Evo mounting bracket was also different.

I spoke with there customer service department and one of the managers (Raymond). He took care of everything. If said that he was going to call back, he did. They were great.

 

[turboglenn]

I've heard of them failing but not that fast. I would go back to stock coil packs (perform better given the same ignition driver wether it's CDI or stock ignitor unless you have a stand alone that can do 4 sequential spark channels, in which case you're gonna need 2 arc-2's or a 4 channel one anyway)

Sounds like there might be something in your wiring or coil setup for sure, what happens when you hit 12psi on the arc-2 and it won't go further, does the spark jsut shut down totally or does it jsut start mis-firing a ton?

 

[polarmoment]

Honestly, it sounds like one of the coils is bad. If there's a short in the primary, it can definitely damage the IGBTs that are used to dump the capacitor. Essentially it tries to flow more current than the transistor is rated for and either damages it or sends it into thermal shutdown (I'm assuming their design uses IGBTs with thermal shutdown, it would be stupid engineering not to). That would explain why the first box failed, and why your current box works just fine with the stock coils, but not with the COP setup.

Check the resistance of both the primary and secondary coils for all 4. The one that's significantly lower than the others is likely your culprit.

Also, check the wiring harness to the coils for breaks/loose connections. Anywhere you use connectors, make sure the terminals haven't pushed out of the housings. Sometimes, if the terminals haven't locked into the housing, they can get pushed out when you plug the connector in and with some connectors, it's not very noticeable.

The 300m & dodge intrepid do not charge fast enough to provide you with a better spark.

Actually, they charge a hell of a lot faster than the stock coils, since they're quite a bit lower inductance and about the same resistance. The issue when used inductively is in the current limitation of the drive transistor, not the coils themselves. Without a current clamp, anything over 3mS of charge time on almost any coil stick is the upper limit of their energy output.

As ramsack pointed out though, charge time is irrelevant for CDI, since the coils are not used to store the spark energy, they're just used as step-up transformers for the energy stored in the capacitor. Both should perform about the same with a CDI- which is what leads me to believe that one of the coils is bad.

 

[ramsack]

In literature for the ARC-2 it states the primary coil should not be below 1 ohm. This could very well happen even if you measure resistance to be more than 1 ohm, but the coil is still bad and arcing inside to create a "short"-er path for the electricity to flow.