SM IE: Finishing touches and installation of an electronic ignition

We had a quite bad weather this summer, but I’ve been able to drive the SM on a regular basis, going to classic car meetings organized by my club or others. But there is always something to do on this kind of cars, so here is a summary of my latest interventions.

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I got a problem once when I started the engine: it started but revs went quite high immediately, I was worried. Hopefully, I quickly discovered that one of the air box had moved out of its position and causes an air leak…

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… so I installed some clamps. It fixed the problem, which probably explained also that revs were going down a bit too slow when changing gear

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Then I’m looking why the right headlight unit is too low ant touches the front grill, so I remove the closing steel sheet, on top of the radiator…

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… and when I look to the parts catalog drawings, I discover that two supporting pieces are missing for the link between both headlight units. I didn’t even remember that these parts were supposed to be there

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So, once again, I use some parts from my other SM

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It’s a lot better this way, both headlight units aligned at the right height. I then was able to adjust all headlights

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I go on with the distributor. I didn’t install it at the right position when I put it back recently. It’s in the way of the air filter hoses…

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… so I remove it and move it from one or two teeth on the secondary shaft. It’s now at the right position

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Before adjusting the distributor again, I work on installing two electronic ignition modules “Cartier”, with the associated coils

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Here are the original coils, which are going to disappear

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External resistors and their wires are damaged, so I’m happy to replace them, it will improve again the reliability of the car

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I start by removing the existing coils and I prepare the wiring harness for the electronic modules

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I use an existing hole on the left fender to hold the two modules and connect a ground wire

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The wiring is quite messy…

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… I’ll organize everything later it works as expected

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I’m not sure of the location of the modules, It’s perhaps too hot there, to be confirmed

For quite a long time now, I want to install a “123Ignition” electronic ignition system on this SM, but it’s not available for the moment. Some problems seem to have caused the supplier to stop selling it, even if all the user I know are very happy with it. While waiting for this ignition system, I chose a simple but also efficient solution, which is to insert an electronic module between the original distributor and each coil. This electronic module gives a “cleaner” signal, so the ignition is more precise and stable. This is not a complete electronic ignition system like the “123Ignition”, just a transistorized one.

I read about the Cartier module on multiple forums, mainly Ciron-Collection. This module is installed on various Renault cars from the late 80’s and early 90’s (“Super 5” and “Express” for example). The economical solution is to find this kind of module in a scrap yard, but they are not so easy to find, especially with their connector and wiring. Anyway, I wanted new parts to be sure they work correctly and I’m quite far from french scrap yards. For those who are interested, here are the Renault part numbers and price for each item:

– Ignition assistance module or “Cartier module”: reference 7700742129, price about 80 Euros (tax excluded)
– Wiring harness with connector: reference 7701068573, price about 45 Euros (tax excluded)
– Ignition coil: reference 7700742132, price about 55 Euros (tax excluded)

Installation is simple and it works right away. I didn’t drive the car a lot since I did this installation, but I believe I already noticed that the engine runs more smoothly.