• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Does your car run better with Pertonix?

Share this page

AUSMHLY

AUSMHLY

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Hi all,

I recently installed a Pertonix in my positive ground BJ8.
In the process I found I may have had a bad stock coil, or maybe it just didn't put out what the Pertonix wanted. After installing a Lucas Sports Coil, my car ran great. I mean really really great. Better than it has ever run.

I'm wondering if my car was not running as good as it should have with the stock coil, because maybe it was going. Or if the Pertonix is that much of an improvement over the points. Or maybe the sports coil I should thank?

Anyone here install the Pertonix and not notice a difference in performance?

I replaced the points thinking of reliability. Gaining performance was a pleasant surprise. OK, maybe more of a Woo-hoo!
Roger
 
Roger,
I followed the same route you did with fantastic (better than expected) results - pertronix positive ground and lucas sport coil.

Now go and enjoy your newly-discovered performance!
 
Hi Roger,

I did my BJ8 with a negative-ground version and new coil. I did not notice a large difference since my dizzy and coil were not in bad shape. I just wanted to stop fussin' with the points all of the time. That was fun to do when I was a teenager, but now I want to spend my time doing other more "funner" things!

Mark
 
Roger,
I installed both at the same time and noticed a big difference
since the car was not running very well and backfiring before I changed the coil and points with matched set from Petronics.
Ed
 
Wow, I pulled my Petronix ignition out after the car ran so bad. Well, not me personally, because I destroy things when I open the hood. But my nasty mechanic in Kansas City put it in, and perhaps he didn't put it in right. I was frustrated, and insisted that my new mechanic convert it back. I see now that it probably needed a new coil. Wish I had belonged to this forum before I did that. How can I ask my mechanic to convert it back without him thinking I am nuts? (rhetorical question) -d
 
For me the pertronix resulted in <span style="color: #FF0000">substantial </span>running improvement.


I can get the engine to idle much slower (less fuel cost), the engine runs smoother (more accurate firing sequence), and I noticed noticably more power in the mid to high end range (longer dwell time with Pertronix). It also works well on a worn dizzy this is an added bonus!!
 
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/savewave.gif ROGER!


----------------Yep !---------------------Keoke------- /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
 
Thanks guys for your feedback. Good to hear!

On a side note, my car at idle is about 5,500 - 6,000. The generator red light does not light up.

Sometimes the engine may stall when hot, at a stop light.

While driving, the motor is so smooth. But at idle, the engine does not idle like clock work. Sort of makes a little putt putt noise every once in a while. My mechanic places his fingers behind each tailpipe separately to feel if the pressure is the same. That and smelling the exhuast is one of the ways he tunes. I assume he has tuned it to where he thinks it should be?

I've been told by some, that the engine can idle so smooth that you don't hear any putting sound, just a constant exhaust tone and engine does not vibrate much. Is this true?

What's going on with my idle? What is my car telling me?
Roger
 
AUSMHLY said:
Thanks guys for your feedback. Good to hear!

On a side note, my car at idle is about 5,500 - 6,000. The generator red light does not light up.


What's going on with my idle? What is my car telling me?
Roger
Click to expand...
Well, you might want to bring the idle down below redline.
 
" What is my car telling me"-----Let me alone! and tell that silly old man that keeps putting his fingers up my tail pipes that; the only way the exhaust pressures in dual exhaust systems get balanced is if the pipes are symeised or include a balance pipe and I ain't got neither.---Keoke- /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
Roger,
I really wouldn't expect the engines with the later, more radical cam timing, (more valve timing overlap) such as yours, to idle quite as slowly or as smoothly as the earlier cars with less radical cam designs. It's just the way they are made.

Any age related cylinder pressure differences may also contribute to some idle roughness. I agree with Keoke on the exhaust pressures.

On my Four, with radical cam & light flywheel, 1,100 rpm is about as low as it will go with a smooth idle. It's all part of the particular design.

Speed up the idle a bit if you want it smoother. These engines weren't made to idle at 400 rpm & still be able to balance a nickel on the top as were some of the old engines that folks used to brag about.

Just enjoy your car & don't sweat it.

With regard to the Pertronix, I only noticed slightly quicker starting, like instantaneous. The advantages of no points or condenser are the main benefit for me.
D
 
Though we're trying to notice a negative (lack of syptoms) I'd like to suggest one other advantage for Pertronix and other electronic ignitions: The failure mode is total. With points jiggle due to shaft wobble or a condenser going south we begin to have intermittent problems and are usually pointed toward several areas--and often the only way of putting a part beyond suspicion is to replace it. My diagnostic skills are not that great and I like it when the car simply dies and there is no spark. For me it is either the coil or the module and on the road I carry one of each.

BTW on my Elva I chased an "intermittent miss" for months--it went away when I sent my disty off to Jeff at Advanced.

"No I'm not a real mechanic but I do have a Pertronix ignition."
 
I have put a Pertronix in a couple of cars, my current 100 and the Sprite I had before that. I had expected a smoother idle to be the most noticeable improvement.

In both cases I did not see much difference in the idle, I did see a noticeable, but not huge by any means, improvement in smoothness and power in mid to upper RPMs.

Have not had any ignition problems with either car after the Pertronix was installed.

I think Grassroots Motorsports did a test a few years back, maybe with an MGB, and they did get a few extra HP with the Pertronix.

I also like the fact that is looks fairly stock other than the extra wire coming out of the distributor and can be converteb back to original fairly easily.

Michael, Interesting point about spares/repair above, I have heard people say the opposite, the nice thing about points is you can file them and reset or do a roadside repair in many cases and still get home, whereas if the Pert. fails it is DOA. However, if you do carry the spare unit (I carry the old points, etc. as my back up) you have any easy roadside fix.
 
Hello gents,

I find it hard to accept that the change to electronic ignition makes a discernible difference when driving the car,
unless the original ignition is performing well below par. (Thank you Ed_K for making the point for me.)
These older cars are really not that demanding of their ignition as they are relatively low output engines.

If you can't be bothered to set points or pay someone to do it for you, fine, but as to appreciable performance gains??

Alec
 
GregW said:
AUSMHLY said:
Thanks guys for your feedback. Good to hear!

On a side note, my car at idle is about 5,500 - 6,000. The generator red light does not light up.


What's going on with my idle? What is my car telling me?
Roger
Click to expand...
Well, you might want to bring the idle down below redline.
Click to expand...

Yikes, my bad. Idle is 550-600. Good point!
 
"Idle is 550-500"--- This is too low for a smooth idle in most of these engines. Set the Idle speed when hot at ~ 1000 on the car's tach.---Fwiw--Keoke
 
tahoe healey said:
Your car idles at 5500 to 6000 RPM?
Click to expand...


------YEP and it's red lined at about 60.000 RPM-------Keoke- /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/banana.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
Back
Top