[pfilean]

You can find a lot of comments from people who ahve had issues with Pertronix and changed back to points (including me). Don;t know if you can show any correlation to the era when particular Pertronix were made or not. Maybe they got better or worse over time.

[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by pfilean

You can find a lot of comments from people who ahve had issues with Pertronix and changed back to points (including me). Don;t know if you can show any correlation to the era when particular Pertronix were made or not. Maybe they got better or worse over time.

Did you contact Pertronix support when you had issues? What issues did you have?

There are many different kits out there, if you had an issue with one brand, you could always try another brand.

Or, try a different distributor, like an MSD RTR. There are many solutions, if one doesn't work for you is not a good reason to condemn/bail on all approaches.

The advantages of replacing breaker points with an electronic solution are clear, it's not something that can be argued successfully.



.

[steve25]

It’s also not all about spark energy once your at a certain voltage level, it’s about spark duration also.

There are some Plazma systems that can throw a multiple spark all the way up to 9K and you can program when the second spark takes place no less!

[Cliff R]

Since the discussion drifted over into points and points conversions I'll add this.

I've had so many issues related to Pertronix in the last 20 years or so I will NOT touch them here with a 200' pole. I could fill dozens of pages up here with the issues we've seen and it got so bad in recent years I actually had to question customers I was sending carburetors to as to whether they were using Petronix in their stock distributors or not?

They have also changed (upgraded) the product several times. I was never fond of the early varieties and never once saw any improvement whatsoever over a stock set of GM points. What I've found in coming up on 5 decades of being in this hobby and rebuilding carbs adn distributors is that every single type of electronic "conversion" or "upgrade" is going to fail at some point. They don't tell you that anywhere in the advertising. It's not a matter of if, it's when. I've tried every possible HEI module "upgrade" ever sold at one time or another. The "bug zapping" high RPM/high performance modules usually work right out of the box, but fail a miserable death after being placed in service. This may be hours, days, weeks or months, but every single time I tested them one day you will go to start the vehicle and no-spark.

Over the decades of that sort of testing I kept my original mid-70's OEM "990" module in the glove box and kept going back to it.

As far as points I will only use USA made Delco points sets and condensers, and with all the "outsourcing" and "reboxing" going on these days I source as mentioned NOS from Ebay. ZERO issues with them and a stock set has plenty of spring tension for one of these engines, even in high performance use where we're spinning them past 5000rpm's. As far as replacing a good working set of points with anything else and expecting improved performance, it's NOT going to happen. Matter of fact I've replaced factory points distributors in race applications with MSD billet units and gained NOTHING anyplace at the track. Yes, not one milli-second in ET quicker anyplace on the run. Certainly that's not what anyone wants to here after spending big money on those sort of "upgrades", but that's just the way it really works with these things no matter how much advertising the company selling those products does to steer you in that direction........FWIW.......

[steve25]

Since I repair electronics for a day job I can tell you without reservation that’s there’s two main things that as Cliff has posted about “time” will make them fail.

1) over voltage.

2) heat.
The plug in modules in HEI Dizzy’s should have been heat sinked externally, like mounted on the fire wall to a flat aluminum adapter plate since Pontiac Dizzy’s are in the rear to minimize heat saturation.

If you make up a simple 4 wire extension jumper this can be done to the module in a afternoon.

In terms of semiconductors that make up SS devices ( Transistors and Diodes) every 20 degree drop in temp will double there life, so it’s not a minor change!

Also these internal components a long with resistors and cap’s in these modules will change there ratings and or specs as they go up in temp.

A 10K ohm resistor inside a electronic device might rise up in value to 10.4 K and this can change the functioning of the module in terms of when it throws a spark.

[mgarblik]

The only aftermarket ignition system I have had noticeable improvement with is MSD 6 for a street driven vehicle. 100% reliable? Absolutely not. They can leave you stranded just like any other electronic device. Faster starts cold than points? yes. Cleaner warm-up? yes. Better driveability at low speeds? yes. Smoother idle? yes. Stronger acceleration? NO Better 1/4 mile times? NO More peak HP and Torque? NO. So it all really depends on what you are looking for and the level of tune perfection your engine package has. The multiple sparks at low RPM, can cover up and band aid a non-perfect tune and less than optimal fuel IMO. Stock points and coils have limited total voltage capability and one spark. If that's all the engine needs, there will be no difference. That typically shouldn't exceed 10-12 KV. But an MSD has multispark capability at low RPM's around 3000, and 40-50 KV capability depending on the box. I only run the old MSD boxes which were USA made in Texas. All the new street stuff and most race stuff is made in China now, so no comment on their reliability.

[Formulajones]

As others already mentioned, I've also had my runaround with Pertronix.

To answer one question asked first, there is no difference in how the car runs on the street or track with a Pertronix kit vs the points. My bird and my vette both ran identical, started just as quick etc... The only difference was eliminating the points, which really wasn't a benefit as it turns out.

The vette worked fine with Pertronix but the bird did not. On the highway with extended cruising the Pertronix would overheat and shut down. Scary when shooting down the fast lane and trying to cross 4 lanes of traffic to the emergency lane all the while loosing speed rapidly and damn near getting run over. After 2 more episodes of that I took the next exit and drove home back roads, at lower rpms, and it was fine. Sent that back to Pertronix and they did find an issue with it. They sent a new one. So customer service was top notch. However the new one did the exact same thing. Extended highway driving and the car shuts down.
I surmised that on a Pontiac with the distributor buried down behind the intake and no air circulation back there to speak of, it was just too hot of an environment for Pertronix. I reinstalled points and never looked back.

I daily drive the car and have used points ever since. They have never failed me. It's just a stupid simple setup, it's brainless and it works. The car still runs the same ET at the track and is dead nuts reliable.

If I really want a wiz bang setup that needs multispark, rev limit etc.... my favorite is to keep the points and use that to trigger an MSD box. The best part about this setup is that if the box were to ever fail, I can swap a couple wires around on the coil and drive away on the points. My Z is setup this way, also a daily driver.

Other cars that I don't daily drive, I do use complete MSD billet distributors and boxes without complaints, but as far as these add on do-dads to simply just remove the points like Pertronix and others, I'm not a fan.

[steve25]

The last time I had a Pertronic’s in my car it was making my coil get excessively hot and the spark output could only sustain the motor to 1500 rpm and that was with a light load only.

[Formulajones]

I never revisited it after that Steve and gave up on it.

However I did send the new unit back to Pertronix and they again said they found something wrong with it (don't remember but they did send a test sheet to explain which is wrapped up in the box) So they did send out yet another brand new Pertronix setup for the 3rd time without question. So I can't complain about the customer service.

That new unit still sits in it's box on the shelf to this day I just wasn't going to install it again.

The vette did continue to run fine for years though, the Pontiac just didn't like it.