I decided to relocate my ICM as my wiring was jacked up from age. Since my car is also my track car, I decided it was time to do a lot more vooling

Step 1 was a bigger heat sink. I searched around on Amazon and found tons of heatsinks that were adhesive lined, but that's not what I needed. FAR fewer were designed to be screwed in to something and then act as a heat sink for another object... But this guy was, and as a bonus one of the reviewers said he uses them to mount ICMs in hot rods.
Baomain Heat Sinks Aluminum for... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QJ8DV8G?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This worked out really well. The ICM fits nicely, and you have clearance for the plug if you mount the ICM with the bottom edge all the way down. Indrilled new holes using the ICM as a guide and boom, ICM mounted.

Positioning this new heatsink was less fun, it's huge. I could have easily fit near the overflow tank, but since I have a custom intake I was able to fit it in the airflow path next to my intake tube. It needed too be fairly close to the tune to avoid a hood reinforcement. But this means I have a huge heatsink, and more airflow over it. This should certainly keep it cool.

Extending the wires was wiring. I used copper crimp sleeves and heat shrinks and then extended the wires. To where they needed to go. A new ICM connector and some new thermal paste and we should be good to go.

This is the ICM mounted on the new heat sink


A comparison on heat sink size, mine vs stock.



The ICM in its new home

A little detail of the wiring, I largely followed factory paths and used corrugated split loom for protection and looks.



Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. One of the downsidea of working when the kids are asleep.

 

That looks like a good spot to mount the icm. That heatsink is massive and should do nicely keeping the icm cool on the track. Were you having ignition issues prior to moving it?

 

Yeah, as part of a string of engine cut out issues (where the tach would die). They've been mainly working and connector issues, when I'd wiggle the wiring at the ICM it would cut out. The connector itself just felt loose, and the wiring was definitely under stress.

I think I have the white and white/black switched. Went to try starting it this morning and it was a no go. Gonna have to prove the wiring. The white and white/blknwires were tough to tell what was what because they both looked like dirty white wires lol.

 

It makes you wonder why GM even bothered putting the ICM in the distributor in the first place. This is a continuous problem that almost every GM car from the 80s has had... not even just talking about OPTI-Spark. There are dozens of fixes to make them last longer... but until you mentioned this, it didn't even occur to me how simple it would be to just extent the connectors and relocate that device. I don't know if the length of wire affects the performance (guess not)?

Probably obvious, but I just got the EE part of the FAU. I'd originally signed up for FAU's EE program, but they didn't have any night classes, and I was working full time for the Dolphins at the time, and it would have required me to drive up to Boca every night anyway. I ended up transferring to FIU in the EE program... I got about 1/4 of the way through, and I couldn't get half the classes I needed while working full time... felt like it was going to take FOREVER... so I switched to Barry University and got a Software Engineering degree since I already had a CompSci AS from Broward, and everyone who becomes an electrical engineer that I knew was writing software anyway... so that's what I did. I did like the campus though. FAU has come a LONG way in the past decade too. It was always a good school... but it's really become a pretty competitive school in the past few years too.

 

I haven't been by there since I graduated. I was working full time for Best Buy so I was able to get most of my hours in on weekends and get my classes M/W/F. It was a nice campus, but man was it weird being a poor college kid surrounded by all the rich a holes in Boca, lol.

I've seen a few people relocate them, usually they move them to other locations more near the coolant overflow tank. Seems to work fine if you do it right lol.

 

Small update. I had the white and black and white wires swapped. It had it's strongest start maybe ever, so there was definitely some resistance being added in the old connection.

 

Update again. Works great. Car runs like a champ, better than it has in recent memory. It's actually pretty weird because it was running a little shakey and sounded funny even when it was running right, so the ICM connector must have been adding resistance to the circuit somehow or just making inconsistent contact.