How reliable has your Pertronix electronic ignition been?

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That's what I was going to say, most people who say they haven't had any issues fitted them a number of years ago whereas there's plenty of anecdotal evidence the newer ones are poor quality. I think it was @gratboyslim who fitted one at Techenders last year and it packed up after about a week....

 

And they are expensive or what they are.
Mine's still going strong after 20+ years but I've retired it with the distributor as a spare.

 

I find one of these is indispensable to have lying around

 

I am not sure whether to refit a new points replacement module or stick with points. I think the ideal is a deconstructed module with its Hall effect sensor inside the distributor and the heat sensitive electronics module outside on the fan housing or somewhere cool.

I wonder if its the adaptive dwell and auto shutoff feature is what is being affected by the heat..the features the Ignitor I doesnt have..

This is an Accuspark - the Hall sensor is missing on the right. My suspicions are around a timing circuit with a 5.1megohm resistor ( marked 515) - thats dealling with a max of 2 microamps current. Which is leakage current for hot semiconductors...so it could just be shutting itself off when its hot because of leakage currents.
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Same with me. Had their coil too iirc

 

Well, I had one in my bug for years with no probs and then fitted one to the bus at Techenders that lasted the grand total of a week. However, I sent it back to Pertronix via JK and they found nothing wrong with it. I can't believe there is anything we did wrong with the install, but I haven't had the courage to try it again. I am trying to follow the "if it ain't broke" saying, but I find it hard not to sometimes! I did install their coil at the same time, but it's not had any misfire since being back on the points. If anyone is interested, I have some advice sheet from Pertronix that came back with it.

 

My pertronix started to cause a misfire. It got steadily worse until it failed completely. Only had a thousand miles or so on it. I switched to another brand and the same thing started happening, I've just pulled it and gone back to points.

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Fitted a Pertronix 1 and flamethrower coil last year, coil lasted 350 miles and put original Bosch back on.Bought a decent coil and keep Bosch as a spare. Been ok for 3000 miles. JK refunded coil cost no questions asked so assume this is a regular thing.

 

How the mighty have fallen - 20 year old coil and ignitor 1 still going strong. So disappointing when a company with a good rep cashes in on the rep to sell rubbish. One wonders if they been bought out? That is usually the start of the rot - accountant saves a penny, product goes down the pan.
There will be a market for "original" ignition electronics before we know it.

 

Let’s hope so as I have one that I need to get round to selling

 

I’ve moved to traditional points. I like them and I’ll keep them on until I start to hear good things about the new electronic modules.

£5 a year for points, or £30 gets you an entire new dizzy - cap, rotor, points included

 

For reasons even I don’t understand, I fitted a Powerspark module to my Beetle engine when I rebuilt it. It’s been faultless for the couple of thousand miles it’s been on there, but I am pretty sure there is a small pile of points dissys under the bonnet, just in case lol

My theory is, if you have a cool running engine (ie a type 4 in good nick) or a small car, it will be fine. If you have a thrashy little type 1 trying to haul a bus along, it’s likely to throw the towel in.

probably

 

I was tempted to say much the same but more vaguely - if various makes fail one after the other perhaps the fault lies elsewhere.

 

Thats a good point but if correct then the “ specialist “ suppliers shouldn’t be selling them as suitable for our “thrashy” type 1’s. . They are big enough organisations to insist on some R&D by the suppliers to find out the reason behind what appears to be fairly regular failure in our vans.

 

They don’t care. As long as people buy them, they’ll sell them.

 

..it’s the same old AGAIN really..the QUALITY of the parts nowdsys especially for our old vws but not only, is appaling in most cases..you want to improve your 1970s vehicle and it turnes out, you out of pocket and have constant issues with it..I was back to the points few years ago after never constant battle with misfires and rough idle..luckily when I took my old og dizzy aparat I didnt loose and bits of it so put it all back together, fitted it and never looked back..I check my points once a year and setting them takes maybe 10mins?..so whats the point of..yes of course I dont run high performance motor..we all know now where all those parts come from, where they are made and what ever you get these days is a hit or miss really..you might be lucky tho..


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The point is supposed to be never ever having to check or set your timing again plus a constant non-degrading reliable spark that does not change as it does through the life of points. No connection to high performance.

Obviously all that goes straight out of the window if the ruddy things fail and are less reliable that points! If I didn't have an old reliable one and/or a 123 I'd also be buying points at this juncture.

 

I don’t fit them to customers buses anymore, points all the way.

 

They're really not big enough for that. If they don't sell 'em, someone else will happily take the business. I once asked Heritage why they had good stuff and crap and the answer was that if they didn't offer cheap rubbish like their competitors they'd simply look over priced and go out of business. So... at the end of the day it's our own fault for buying rubbish.