Strange Problem?

[WS23]

On 2 separate occasions (1 month apart) driving my car to the track, for the briefest of moments the engine has a total loss of power. As if the key was turned off then on. Both times this has happened in approximately the same geographical location traveling in the same direction. It never happened traveling in the opposite direction. No other ill effects.

Accross the freeway where the problem was experienced is some kind of a large generating plant. I use an MSD 6AL. I have not experienced this phenomena in my other non MSD equipped vehicles. My neighbor traveling with us in his own MSD 6 equipped car thinks he suffered a similar experience. However he wasn't sure where it happened, but certainly within a mile or two of my occurrence. Also part of the group was my son, who has an MSD 6, but did not report the same phenomena.

I believe the problem may be electrical in nature, but not really sure. I am at a loss as to why this happened. EMI? Why only on one side of the road, not in the opposite direction? Any ideas? Anyone had similar experience?

[Sean C]

Well it happened on "Close Encounters of the third kind"

Seriously though, there are probably certain frequencies in existance that will indeed interfere with "Electronic ignition". If this is the ONLY place this has happened, I would not rule out the possibility of some kind of interference from this Plant.

Strange indeed!

[Frans Veldman]

WS23,
Any wire is an antenna, and it resonates on some frequency. Which frequency depends on many things, like the length of the wire.

If something is radiated from that plant that happens to be right on the frequency of the wire used to transport the magnetic pickup signal to the MSD 6, it may well be strong enough to disturbe the small signal of your magnetic pickup.

That it is only strong enough if you travel in one particular direction, well, have you ever walked around with an FM radio? You might have noticed that the signal strenght varies heavily within a few feet distance. It also makes a difference how the antenna is oriented.

I'm a radio amateur myself, and have used fairly strong transmitters in my 4x4 cars. I remember that one specific BMW model was very sensitive for radio transmissions, it would die right away if I keyed the mike. (Was always a big fun if someone in such a BMW tried to pass me, you can imagine. I would kill their electronic injection or ignition just before they passed me.)

Make sure the wires from the magnetic pickup are properly twisted. Also, keep all wires as short as possible.

Frans

[WS23]

Thanks Sean. When I spoke with the Tech's at MSD they had not heard of this happening. However they did concede that "any electrical device is susceptible to electrical noise."

I may be wrong but I thought power plants operate on very low frequency output. I would be more inclined to think that any electrical interference of this nature would be high frequency in origin. One thought I had was microwave interference. And since microwaves operate on point to point, it could account for the problem happening in the same geographical location. But again, I have no real idea, I'm just taking guesses.

I know that the police have a device that can render a vehicle inoperative by sending some type of interference to the ignition system. But I have no further understanding on how that works. But it does lend credibility to my interference theory. I'm not looking for an exact explanation, just a reasonable understanding of what happened & why.

BTW, I've never bee abducted by aliens, & they never performed experiments on me either! LOL

[WS23]

Thanks Frans. You make good sense. I used to have ham radio license (WA6AZH) years ago as well. Looks like you are still having fun with it!

73's to you.

[mtrv8n]

Moments from "the day the Earth stood still " aside, it is very possible for a leaky power transformer to interfere with a magnetic pickup. Wierder things have happened. It's been documented that radio signals have been picked up by fillings in teeth. A lot of the problem you have had depends upon the frequency, not just the power, involved. You can try a simple shield, with aluminum foil, to see if you can "attenuate" the interference.
If you are really worried, buy one of those micrwave leakage detectors from Radio Shack, and see what it registers when this happens.
BTW, the cop cut out you mentioned is an OBD III device, not really out there yet, which uses the manufacterers onboard wireless diagnostic system to monkey with the cars computer. Obviously, older Mopars don't need to worry about this. Any broadband signal strong enough to indescriminately stop traffic would probably fry the cop's own car, not to mention any future family he might have..

[Frans Veldman]

Power plants indeed operate on a very low frequency (60 Hz). However, they are not very "clean" and produce a lot of harmonics. (I guess since you have been a radio amateur you know that any transmitter produces harmonics that must be filtered out). Because the 60 Hz signal is *HUGE*, you can imagine that any small harmonics are fairly strong as well. Power plants are notorious for producing electrical "noise".

Shielding with aluminium foil would not help. I suspect that there is a magnetic component involved in the disturbance, and aluminium foil is worthless against magnetics. You'd better use a ferro-metal instead. (If it is attracted by a magnet, you might assume that it shields against magnetic noise).

Microwave detectors can only be used to detect micro waves, and only very strong ones.
A power plant can radiate anything but the least of all microwaves. And microwaves would not likely interfere with a electronic ignition (the wave length is very small).

Hope this helps,
Frans