Early '74 Ignition vs. E12-80?

[austex]

Hey everybody, I was wondering if there's a noticeable difference in performance between the electronic ignition of the early '74 260Z, and the E12-80 of the later model Z's.

But I guess my real question is: would it be worth it to get a ZX distributor with the E12-80 for my early '74?

Edited April 17, 2009 by austex

[sblake01]

Might be tough to find someone who could speak factually on that comparison. Right of the top of my head, I can't think of anyone I know who has a 260Z and has done that conversion. Might be a good idea since some of the parts of the early EI are virtually non existant or overly expensive when you do find them.

[austex]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking as well.

[Arne]

I can't imagine that there'd be any performance difference, if all else is equal (same coil, whether or not you have CDI added, timing and advance curves, etc.). Any performance difference would be from one of those other factors, not which distributor and module triggers the spark.

But you're both right, parts availability might be a reason to swap.

[jmortensen]

The ZX distributor might be marginally more reliable because of it's stator and reluctor design where the stator and reluctor cannot change their distance from each other (unless the vacuum advance mechanism breaks), vs the Z distributor has a pickup which can move out of alignment and cause trouble and has a specified gap to be set. I've seen this gap cause problems on a friend's 510 with the 4 cylinder version of this distributor--pickup moved into the reluctor and the car died at an autocross. It took a while for my friend to figure out the problem, but the gap between the reluctor and sensor was fixed and it fired right back up and ran for the rest of the day. Soon after a DIS crankfire ignition was installed.

The big difference is the amount of advance built into the distributors. I don't have the specs handy on the 260Z distributor, but I think I'm right in saying that it has something like 22+ degrees of mechanical advance built in. That's a lot. More on why you want less and how vacuum advance plays a roll here:

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34073

[kully 560]

yes I did the swap over from a early 260 8/74 to a e12/80 dissy .the difference is night and day . starts easy and runs better all around . mine was the orignal auto dissy daul pickup where it retards 8 degrees after warm up for emmissions . I also used the msd 6a ingition and blaster coil . car never ran so good .

Edited April 22, 2009 by kully 560

[thrustnut]

Hey, im new to this site but have been over at HybridZ for a while. I have an E12-80 dizzy for sale if you are interested. It has the vacuum advance removed and no cap or rotor, but other then that is in perfect shape. I cleaned it up for a project I had, but ended up just using my stock dizzy with a Crane ignition. I am asking 40.00 plus shipping. I can send you pics or you can check out the listing at hybridZ. My screen name is the same over there.

Thanks, Chris