Electronic ignition - Revisited after I gave up!

[Arne]

Oh, to be honest, I can't say that I won't try it yet again. After all, I already own the stuff, eventually I'll convince myself that there must be a way to get it to work.

Oh, I know myself so well. Today I put it all back.

Decided it was time for a minor tune-up today. So as part of that I decided I'd try it one more time, and give it every possible chance to work.

So I installed new plugs (NGK BP6ES), new wires (not that the old ones were bad, but I'd couldn't handle those bright blue NGK wires under the hood of my red car any more), cleaned, tested and lubed the advance mechanism, installed the Ignitor and matching 3.0 Ω coil, bypassed the resistor, and built a new, heavy-gauge power wire to the Ignitor. Set the timing to 8° BTDC, vacuum advance still hooked up.

So far, so good. Seems to pull smoothly to 6000+ in first and second, didn't drive it anywhere I could try it in the higher gears. So I'll give it another try for a while. Updates will be posted when/if things change.

Edited April 4, 2010 by Arne

[turbo 260]

Arne,

Glad to hear it's running. I had a friend who had someone else put in his electronic ignition, actually it was a Z shop, and they never bypassed his resistor. He drove from Tampa to dallas and back. He stopped by my place to see if I could figure it out. Once we bypassed the resistor the car ran noticably better. I set my car to 10 degrees BTDC with the vacuum advance disconectted ( I am running fuel injection though). May I also suggest NGK 5632 which is BCPR6E-11. The "C" means it's the smaller socket size. Drppoing the "S" changes from a standar tip to a V groove and the "-11" increases the gap to 1.1. These are a standard honda plug, so everyone usually has them in stock.

Jim

[GreenZZZ]

I dropped the Mallory Optical Distributer/Coil/Ballast in, added some beefy ground wires, set the timing and it was plug-n-play...

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=24284&ppuser=14083

[Babalouie]

I had problems with my ignition too, and the more I "improved" it with upgraded parts the worse it got. In the end it turned out a few of the connections on the keybarrel were dodgy. Just to be sure, now I run a relay with the coil +ve getting a direct feed of juice from the battery.

Do Zs run a relay?

[barth4567]

Oh, I know myself so well. Today I put it all back.

Decided it was time for a minor tune-up today. So as part of that I decided I'd try it one more time, and give it every possible chance to work.

So I installed new plugs (NGK BP6ES), new wires (not that the old ones were bad, but I'd couldn't handle those bright blue NGK wires under the hood of my red car any more), cleaned, tested and lubed the advance mechanism, installed the Ignitor and matching 3.0 Ω coil, bypassed the resistor, and built a new, heavy-gauge power wire to the Ignitor. Set the timing to 8° BTDC, vacuum advance still hooked up.

So far, so good. Seems to pull smoothly to 6000+ in first and second, didn't drive it anywhere I could try it in the higher gears. So I'll give it another try for a while. Updates will be posted when/if things change.

Arne: I put my Pertronix in over three years ago and it still works just fine. Running the same Ngk plugs you are,Beck Arnley Cap,Rotor,and Beck Arnley 7mm wires. Left the stock coil in as well as the Ballast Resistor and really changed nothing out. Timing is about the same as yours. My distributor is the original,far from completely tight, and probably needs to be rebuilt. Original Motor has over 250k and is using some oil. Still runs fine. I do run premium gas from Chevron. Only problem I have ever had is pinging once in awhile. And yes this was after two E-1280 failures. Anyway I try to keep things as simple as I can and it works for me. I am a shadetree mechanic at best.:laugh: I know how particular you are about your car. Just cannot understand why it won't work for you. Gary and Roger helped me and I have never looked back. I am planning on putting a New/Oem/ Rebuilt distributor in this summer,and having my original rebuilt. No magic here. Alot of guys seem to run different types of ignitions and if they work for them I say very cool. If you like your points and are happy that is all that really matters is it not? Or not. Just my opinion.

[Arne]

Well, my best guess as of now is that the Pertronix will work fine in most cars, but only if everything else in the ignition is good also. The differences between what I have installed now and working fine (so far) and what was failing to rev past 4500 RPM when I last went back to points are two small things: 1.) I replaced the older BP6ES plugs with a fresh set; and 2.) I made up a new power supply wire to run to the Ignitor that was much larger gauge wire than the previous wire, hoping for less voltage drop to the Ignitor.

That's all I did differently, yet this time it's running fine. The jury is still out on this, as I don't yet trust it to stay this way.

[Bruce Palmer]

I think I've mentioned this before but a great source for electronic distributors in Portland OR is www.philbingroup.com. Rebushed, recurved for points motors, NEW advance plates, ready to plug and play. Under $200 if memory serves......

[motorman7]

Wasn't sure whether to add this here or put it under the what I did this weekend thread. Seems it would be most appropriate here.

This weekend I went to the pick your part place in Oceanside and snagged a 280ZX dizzy to replace my Petronix/standard dizzy. I too had the 4000 RPM stall and was hoping this would fix it. At 4K, it seemed like the ignition was cutting out and I could actually get a gas smell, so I was thinking it was an ignition issue.

The change out was pretty easy since I already had the Petronix. I pulled the old dizzy and mount, noted the rotor location (cylinder 2) and installed the new 280zx dizzy and mount and started the cabling with rotor location being cylinder number 2.

This worked great, started right up. Odd thing was the RPM's would go up much higher than my other dizzy. Had to break out the Unisyn and lower idle speed. The thing that is odd here is if my earlier dizzy was optimized, and I think it was, why would a new dizzy bring the RPM's higher?

Anyway, I have the dizzy dialed in and I love how it runs. No more 4K stall and maybe just me, but car seems much smoother. I will keep the old dizzy just in case, but for now, it seems like a nice change. So for my Yellow '71 240 Z, I am now running a 280 alternator and 280 dizzy on a 260 motor. Talk about a hybrid.

Edited June 14, 2010 by motorman7

[alhbln]

This worked great, started right up. Odd thing was the RPM's would go up much higher than my other dizzy. Had to break out the Unisyn and lower idle speed. The thing that is odd here is if my earlier dizzy was optimized, and I think it was, why would a new dizzy bring the RPM's higher?

A higher advance at idle will lead to a higher idle RPM.

[jmortensen]

This worked great, started right up. Odd thing was the RPM's would go up much higher than my other dizzy. Had to break out the Unisyn and lower idle speed. The thing that is odd here is if my earlier dizzy was optimized, and I think it was, why would a new dizzy bring the RPM's higher?

I agree with the above. Double check the timing at idle. If you are going to run without vacuum advance (which I suggest) then start with the timing at about 18 degrees BTDC and adjust a little back or forward from there as necessary. If you are going to run the vacuum advance I would guess that you will probably have too much total advance. Depending on which ZX distributor you have you will get 17 to 18 degrees of mechanical advance out of it by about 2500 rpm, plus whatever you get via the vacuum advance. Those vacuum units are almost always broken too.

[Arne]

Me three. I ditched my ZX dizzy because I didn't like the advance curve. Knowing what I know now, I'd have just ditched the vacuum advance instead.

[motorman7]

I will give that a try. Right now I have the vacuum hooked up. It will be interesting to see how it does with the vacuum removed. Will try and set that up tonight when i get home. Thanks for the input.

Rich