Jacobs Off Road Energy Pak

77 Wagoneer - May 1, 2004

We installed a Jacobs Off-Road Ignition Kit on Phoebe. Also got new Champion Platinum's gapped to 50k and Belden 8 mm silicone HP plug wires on her. Krista has been doing the happy dance for a few days waiting for Jacobs to arrive. This one is a lot different than the Omni on her dad's Wag. We woke up Friday to 6" new snow on the ground. Woah, we went down 2200 feet to Krista's dad's farm in McElmo Canyon for some wrenching. Initially, we thought we could do away with stock ignition module (prestolite BID dizzy) but the orange and purple wires won't take trigger from dizzy. So it is connected to the green & red stock coil connection. The Omni on Lu's Wag is connected the same way. Well, on Phoebe, it has shut down twice since the Jacobs install. We know the stock ignition module is flakey. Not pleased we have to use stock module to trigger Jacobs.

Stock modules have been coming & going here the last year. Turns out Autozone has lifetime warranty on the Wells unit, geez, didn't know that. We bought 2 there last year. Went by yesterday and had the typical Autozone experience. We got the last one off the shelf for warranty replacement and she wouldn't start. Took it off and went in for a talk. The guy puts it on a tester and tells me it is good. "NO, it is not GOOD" I say. 3 times he tests it, 3 times he tells me it is good. "OK, lemme show ya" I say. We go out to Jeep and start it with old one. Connect new one (not mounted to fender). She starts (she-it). I say wait a sec. I hold the module and ground the module to the fender. She NO starts. He says "THATS really something". I am about to smack his head down on the radiator. (not good for radiator) He gives me money back on one of the modules and we leave a little POd.

Beginning to sound like a long story? Yeah, me too...

Yeah, and this - I think all the factory ignition modules are crap for the most part. There is quality control issues here fer sure. Funny, my 88 GW has original module at 227k miles and has never missed a lick. Don't get it. Now, I have probably screwed up the good kharma by talking nice about it. So, we go to Parts + where we have been told there is a Borg Warner replacement. Oooops, it is the Motorcraft module. We order a BW replacement. I hope these are more reliable.

We put the new Borg Warner brand module on Tuesday. Before we got to the parts store in Cortez from work at Mesa Verde, Phoebe shut down about a dozen times. We got home high flying, so maybe this one will hold up better since it does not have to drive the coil. We'll see. I think I see a MC dizzy for Phoebe's future though.

I was in Durango the following week for some errands and got to look at the Accel 59101 dizzy up close. Impressive... Didn't even ask the price since it is $209 at Summit and retails for $269. It was tempting though, but budget probably dictates waiting until I can come across a good used MC dizzy and do a TFI upgrade on it.

May 8, 2004 - So far, we have clocked about 400 miles on the new stock ignition module to trigger Jacobs and Phoebe is running strong. The trip to Durango averaged right at 14.5 mpg.

September 2004 - Averaged 12.5 mpg on round trip to Half Moon Bay, CA. About 100 miles of this trip was 100+ mph in northern Nevada on I80.

December 2005 - Averaged 14.5 mpg on round trip to Phoenix, AZ.

August 2006 - Averaged 12.8 on 300 mile round trip to Ouray and on a couple trail rides. Then the Jacobs system died.