Pertronix ignitor II

[perezmaximus]

Has anyone use the pertronix points conversion kits? Is it as good as they say? Is installing as easy as they say?

[The Old Guy]

I am sure you will get quite a few hits on this one. i personally do not care for them. If something goes bad ( and pertronix does go bad) you either need a spare unit , or enough parts to convert it back to points. I have run my 1940 Buick over 100,000 miles ,and it is on the third set of points. I check the gap, and grease the cam every spring , and they have NEVER let me down. My son had a pertronix go bad, and he came home on a rollback

[BRAD59]

I've installed the Pertronix kits on two of my cars.A 66 mustang 289, and my 59 Buick 401. Both kits installed easy. I only installed their points, keeping the original coils. The mustang has been on 4 years, the Buick 2 years. So far they have worked flawlessly. I'd go for it. No more messing with points!

[Guest wildcat65401]

I put it on my ex-wifes 65 Wildcat , it worked okay but it took about a week to get enough voltage to it to make it fire ?

Then I later put it on my 69' Electra worked okay on that one too , easy install after the first time .

I did not put it on my 63' Riviera though because it starts up fine every time and does not seem to need any help .

I wasn't crazy about the waiting period of a few seconds every time I wanted to start the cars with pertronix . I have never had one go bad on me either .

So I'm kinda 50/50 on the whole thing.

[old-tank]

My Pertronix equipped 55 Century burned a rotor on the way to Batavia this last summer. When I got back home the replacement rotor was starting to destruct also. Pertonix has NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT so I changed back to points/condenser.

Willie

[Oxnard Montalvo]

I've had a Pertronix in my '38 for five years with no problems.

We all know any electronic device can quit at any time.

(The points and condenser are in the glove compartment just in case.)

[Bhigdog]

I have units in four different cars. No problems, no maintence, ( so far ). I'm restoring a 55 Olds now and a unit will go in before I even put the Distibutor on the engine......Bob.

[BRAD59]

old-tank, please fill me in on what "burned a rotor " means. what happened to these parts?

[progoofoff]

I have the Pertronix on 2 `55 Centurys and have driven the 66R cross country twice without problems.

I had a problem with voltage on the station wagon and ended up with a jumper on the back side of the resistor which isn`t needed anymore but left it on the fire wall for originality.

[old-tank]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> old-tank, please fill me in on what "burned a rotor " means. what happened to these parts? </div></div>

The rotor actually caught fire in the distributor and all of the tip was obliterated; the replacement rotor had lots of arcing and chips of plastic at the tip missing after only 3000 miles. I tried to contact Pertronix for some guidance on what might have caused this and like said, there is no technical support available. I too have driven all over the country with Pertronix; this unit had been installed for about 15,000 miles with no trouble. I have also driven many hundred thousand miles with points with no trouble. I had never had rotor problems before with points. After I installed Pertronix (I am a sucker for gadgets), it worked well but I saw no advantage in power, driveability, or gas mileage. Stick with points/condensor, check the dwell every 5,000 miles and replace every 25,000 miles.

Willie

[Mrbuick714]

I prefer points. An old-car buff was cruising with his "Hoop-de doo" system and broke down. His fellow buffs could not help him. There he sat.

[perezmaximus]

Isn't the idea of electronic ignition to get more spark thus more power, better start ups?

[raleets]

I've had one of those whiz bangs installed on my '62 Skylark 215 aluminum V-8 for about 6 years now and it has worked FLAWLESSLY. Folks are amazed how quickly the motor fires up. Virtually NO cranking. Almost as good as my 3800 Series II in the LeSabre.

I should also point out that a 40,000 volt coil was installed at the same time, so it gets LOTS of heat when I turn the key!

I'm seriously thinking of putting one into my '56 322 nailhead this winter.

Just thought I would pass along my personal experience.

Bob Leets

[Guffin]

I use a very simple home-made "electronic ignition". It uses a special semiconductor buffering the points. It uses the standard coil and breaker points and the low current through the points keeps them clean (no burning). It gives a longer duration spark due to a big condenser across the coil. This makes idling of the straight eight smother and clean points makes it easy to start. The car is easy to start even after standing during winter. Before it took long time to crank it up in spring and it was misfiring for some miles. You still have the mechanical wear on the breaker but they will last very long. I have used it for some years now.

A good thing is that it is easy to turn it back to standard. It is just to disconnect the circuit, connect the original condenser (it is still on the distributor)to the points and make a direct connection to the coil. All parts are there - just to connect.

Jan

[Pete O]

Maybe it's just me, but I love "messing" with the points! Part of the joy of having an old car is that you can work on them. If you want a new fangled transistorized idiot proof car, buy a new Toyota. But if you want to be able to tinker with your car and actually be able to fix it when it breaks, keep it original.

[Ron Green]

I have Pertronix in a couple of cars and so does my brother and neither one of us have had any issues. Even the Amphicar that occasionally has some water enter the engine compartment has not effected the Pertronix and its performance.

I have spoke to their tech people several times and found them to be well informed however sometimes they are busy and need to call you back, and always do.

I left the points and condenser in a few of my other cars but I like the Pertronix as there is no dwell or points to adjust or condenser to have to worry about if its working or not.

[NTX5467]

The first "electronic" or "transistor" ignition kits in the early 1960s used the points as "a switch", which is what they normally are, but with lower voltage across them. The lower voltage (as I recall) reduced the transfer of material from one of the contacts to the other one (point erosion). Some had a short duration HOT spark and others had a longer duration spark. Performance gains were claimed by all, but some worked better than others, typically on the (as noted) finicky foreign cars that seemed to always needing tuning to run their best.

A hotter spark CAN happen with an electronic ignition system, but 40KV coils will work with points too. The system will ONLY produce the minimum voltage required to fire any spark plug at any given point in time, whether it's 5KV or whatever. In short, with a 30KV coil (generally what the stock systems would do), not every spark is of that voltage. As long as the spark plugs are easy to fire, that 40KV coil is just underhood dressing, but in a modified motor with 13 to 1 compression, it can be necessary (even though the factory systems did not have HP coils for those motors).

The main thing about electronic ignition systems is "no maintenance" and consistency in spark production for each cylinder for many miles (or until the spark plugs need changing). When the point distributor is new, the lobes on the breaker cam are all well-defined and "sharp", which ensures a consistent dwell reading for each cylinder (within production tolerances). With time and wear, even if the rubbing block on the points is lubed each time a new set is installed, wear can make the "peaks" less well-defined from peak to peak and can lead to the situation where if you set the point gap to specs, the dwell will not be in spec--or vice versa. It's easy to see how much variation you can have if you chuck the distributor up in the vice and put a dial indicator on the contact points, and then rotate the distributor shaft to see how the point gap can be different from peak to peak (i.e., cylinder to cylinder). Just a basic wear situation!

When the distributor's cam lobes get to that situation, the best "fix" can be an electronic ignition conversion kit. "Dwell" is a designed-in situation of the circuit board, for example. One of the first "high precision" electronic systems was the Mallory UniLight, which used an LED and a shutter wheel to replace the functions of the points. I'm not sure how the reman distributors stand up to the dial indicator test, though.

Electronic systems also have a minimum voltage they need to work. If the battery voltage is not up to the min level, even if it turns the motor over well, NO SPARK happens. Points work with any level of voltage that lets them put a spark into the spark plugs.

A good set of points in a good distributor (without excessive wear on the breaker cam), lubed and adjusted to specs, can work very well (as they did for us back then!), but some engines are not that easy to change points in (something we might have better tolerated when we were younger--or paid others to do for us).

Also, when points were factory production equipment, most people just drove 12K miles/year and that was generally where points-plugs-filters were maintenanced--although they would last longer for many people. Basicly "yearly maintenance" of sorts. I concur that 25K would work too. In most of our vehicles, how soon do we now hit 25K miles/year?

I suspect that many aftermarket distributors can be used, IF you can get them to be rather incognito when doing so. For example, use a black cap rather than a tan one, plus discretely hiding the additional wiring they might have. All depends upon whether you are going for strict originality or "weekend cruise" orientations.

For quick starts, it takes the ignition system working in conjunction with a good-working carburetor to make things work. This CAN also be a function of which brand/heat range/electrode design/gap width of spark plug too! I know this by observation on a stock engine in one of my cars. Some engines seem to like particular brands of spark plugs too, by observation.

Generally, the closer you can stay to stock in some modifications, the better off you are if you are going to travel away from the metro areas (and hot rod shops like where the modified ignition system was purchased)--one reason the GM HEI is a popular add-on for older motors, but "fails" the cosmetics test of originality in many cases.

This is one area where being an informed shopped can be beneficial! There seems to be lots of differing orientations for the use of the same part. Seems that I recall people using the "orig" Pertronix have good luck with them whereas the users of the "enhanced" Pertronix seem to have variable experiences? Seems like THAT was a defining point in prior discussions of this nature?

Just some thoughts,

NTX5467

[Guest brh]

I switched to this system about 5 years ago. I have been very satisfied with the performance. Just be careful not to set the rotor too close to the new unit, its better to have too much gap than too little. One of the main reasons I switched is because the dist is so close to the fan I did not want to fiddle with that aspect of the car anymore.

[Guffin]

NTX5467, your words are good but you should also have mentioned wear on the bushings. On cars made before approx. 1935 you had lube the distributor regularly. If you didn't the play in the distributor bushings soon got large and the cam could move somewhat sideways. On my cars I can't see any were on the cams and i believe uneven fiering on the cylinders most often are caused by this play in the bushings.

Best way to check the fiering is with a stroboscope. If you can paint marks on the flywheel for each cylinder in top position, and use a stroboscope, triggered by the coil, it is easy to see if the fiering is at the same distance before top for all cylinders. A worn bushing will cause the firing point to wander back and fore. The same will happen with dirty or burned points. You can also check how the fiereing will advance with the rpm (and vacuum). With my primitive electronic device on my Hupmobile the fiering is very even. The Hupp has dual points which are difficult to adjust without a stroboscope.

Jan

[NTX5467]

Good point about the condition of the distributor shaft bushings! In a point system, they are always under tension from the points (at the top bushing) and moreso for the "HD" or "high rpm" points with the stronger spring (to diminish or eliminate) "point bounce" at higher rpms. In extreme cases, the rotor's contact could touch or break the contacts inside the distributor cap.

On an electronic system, distributor shaft bushing wear should be pretty much minimized. No spring pressure from the points (that aren't ehre) means the shaft and balanced rotor are basically spinning freely.

Seems like I remember seeing a method (using a dial indicator and spring tension scale) to measure the upper bushing wear. Of course, if it feels like it's too much when you move the breaker cam from side to side, it probably is. It's not too hard to change the bushings, IF you have the proper tools and can get suitable bushings, BUT you also have to be cognizant of the wear on the distributor shaft too--if any. This wear can be readily apparent after you use some Berryman's B-12 to remove the residual oil coating and varnish from the shaft itself.

From time to time, some of the old Sun Distributor machines come up on some of the auction websites. I thought they were always a neat thing to have around (back when they were in popular use at major repair shops and some new car dealers). No worries about hanging over the fender or radiator to set points or to try to determine the distributor's advance curve (on the engine) or relying on what some instruction sheet says the advance curve will be.

I have a "dial" timing light so I can check total advance with the distributor installed on the engine. Just need a reasonably accurate tach to gauge the curve, then.

One major issue with an electronic ignition is how they might or might not work with the dwell tach you've used with a points ignition system. This can vary from tach maker to tach maker, so it might be advisable to check this out with the electronic ignition manufacturer. For example, I have a Radio Shack Micronta dwell tach that I bought circa 1972. It works fine with point systems but the engine "low rpm" scale reads only 1/2 value on a Chrysler factory electronic ignition system (circa 1972+), but reads accurately on the "high rpm" scale--not the best for fine tuning the idle mixture (at least by using the tach).

With the strobe timing lights, you can mark the balancer/flywheel for each cylinder and then move the light from spark plug to spark plug to check the accuracy, as mentioned . . . plus see if you can read the part number on the fan belts when the engine is running (and the light hooked up). As I mentioned, I have one that has a dial to check advance measuremments with, which uses the vehicle's battery for power (I had a neat Sun self-powered unit that worked great as just a timing light, but it melted when inadvertantly left on an exhaust manifold for a little while--went back to the traditional metal case unit after that . . . with the dial).

One other thing . . . if you want to use the harmonic balancer and mark it for advance and each cylinder's TDC . . . two things might need to happen to ensure ultimate accuracy. One, make sure the balancer's outer ring has not "moved" from when it was new. Two, make sure you index said balancer by actual TDC on whichever cylinder the timing mark is to reference. Sometimes, the keyway in the crankshaft nose can be a few degrees "off" from actual TDC of that cylinder. Similarly, the marks on the flywheel can be checked the same way. Only bad thing is that the cylinder head might need to be removed to do this indexing, using a positive stop TDC tool and/or dial indicator to monitor piston movement.

Just some thoughts,

NTX5467

[perezmaximus]

Now that we are on the subject of distributors, does anybody rebuild them to original specs?