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General TR Anybody Hear or Use This Hot Spark System?

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It is probably not fair to compare a similar one ( true spark) to this one. But the True Spark totally died on me about 170 miles from home and 15 miles from my destination.
I replaced it with a rebuilt points unit and will NEVER EVER go back to a new electronic unit. I suspect that the failure may have been due to the use of copper plug wires. But it died and left me sitting on the side of the road.
 
I love the Petronix in my TR3. It made a world of difference in performance. I do carry points just in case because it is a mechanical device so at some point it will fail. I bought a set for my TR250 2 years before the restoration was complete and I could never get it to run right and concluded it was bad out of the box. Warranty was up so I was stuck with it. Being these are a 1/3 the price I was willing to give it another chance. Plus I'm thinking of my 69 TR6 too which I just started the tear down for it's restoration.
 
I have never been a big fan of Pertronix, and I'm even less of a fan of these cheapo copies. There is just no way you can shoehorn a capacitive-discharge electronic ignition circuit entirely into a little module like that without making some big compromises in the design. I think a better option is one of the units with an external electronics module. If the nonoriginal appearance bothers you, you could mount it somewhere out of sight, and, with a little cleverness with the wiring, it would be hard to tell that it's not an original setup.

Given all that, the Pertronix appears to be a decent-quality component. I've heard nothing but bad things about those copies, mostly poor reliability.

I had a Crane XR700 in my Bugeye Sprite. I liked the unit, but the shutter that goes in the distributor didn't fit well. I ended up making my own on my little lathe, not exactly an option for many people. I now have a 123Ignition distributor in my Porsche. It isn't cheap, but it works well, and I like knowing that I have the right advance curve. I am considering getting one of these, with the programmable advance, for my TR4A. I have to confess to using a Pertronix in the Porsche for a while. I had no problems with it.
 
I have been using the hot spark unit for 4 years of flawless operation. I would not call it a cheapo copy. I would call pertronix an overly priced unit.
 
I'm going to try one in the one car I have that is negative ground. I'll mount it to a spare base plate so it ans the points are simple drop-in substitutions.
 
I carry an extra set of points in the glove box in my TR3 and I run Petronix now. If Hot Spark works as good as TR250GUY says, then it's cheap enough to keep an extra Hot Spark in the glove box. Both would be under 100 bucks but Petronix depending on who you get it from would be over 200 bucks.
 
Looks like I'm going to try one of those Hot Sparks. Went out to go to the store Thursday and the Tr250 would not start. Popped the bonnet and there was a black wire hanging off the coil. Took the distributor off and the Petronics wires wrapped around the roter. Not happy as $100 out the window. For kicks giggles I took a 32nd inch cutoff wheel and cut the module apart to get to a 1/8" of wire sticking out. Soldered both back on and to my surprise it worked. Don't trust it now for long time driving so I'm ordering 2 of those Hot Sparks. Install both to test them and save the one for my 69 TR6 Restoration.

I was concerned when I installed it originally that the wires were too flexible. So I took a #8 ring terminal, pulled the insulator off, used the screw that Petronics gives you to hold the base to the distributor. Then I ran a very thin wire through the terminal end and used the thin wire as a tie down. Don't know how that could have failed.
 

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Geo Hahn said:
I'm going to try one in the one car I have that is negative ground...
Click to expand...

Just a follow-up. I installed it in my spare distributor (Jaguar) and have driven for a couple of weeks including 100°+ drives. Performs just fine.

The idle speed is steadier with this, suggesting there is a bit of wobble in the shaft of the other distributor. Idle wavering doesn't matter much but may be an indicator of what is happening at high RPMs.

I have always used points and would have probably never have tried an electronic trigger but for the $39 price tag.

One drawback is that it appears to come only in the negative ground version, hence of no use in my TRs.
 
Glad it worked out for you. i never posted my experience but I didn't get far. pulled the 250 in the working garage. Checked to make sure I had the correct Ohms in my coil and I did but it doesn't recommend voltage over 13.7 volts at any RPM. I was well over that. It said to install a 1.4 Ohm ballast resister between the coil + and the Hot Spark red terminal. Don't know where to get this resister.

That wasn't the big problem After I installed it and upon start up it ran like crap. Re-set the timing because the pick up is in a different place and that didn't help. Thought I ruined it because of the high voltage and re-installed the Petronics. It ran worse. Heard a creaking noise in the valve cover and discovered that the #1 valve spring broken. That's the second one in 2 years. Don't know what's going on here. Drove it 20k miles after restoration so what's causing this. Got to figure that out first and fix then I'll report back on my Hot Spark experience.

Instal
 
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