protronix ignition

ok. Lets here it Ive read on this board about how bad the protronix ignition systems are. But what kind of problems are they causing. I put on in my car today seems to work fine. I guess I just cant see running a MSD pro Billet dist. and a AL6 box for 700.00 when all Im looking for is reliablity.

 

Larry , Ive seen daves sight it looks great. I might drop him a line and send him my dist. Thanks for your input. I was really expecting to get a bunch of hate mail on this topic. The pertronix to me looks like a spin of of GMs old hall effect ignition from the late 80s. They did have some problems with the coils overloading and burning up the hall switch. But that was mostly because of people not mantaining there cars. Thanks Tim

 

I'll post my experience.

Back in 1998 when I picked up the 71 GS455, it was THE thing out there. I was reading all sorts of good things.

So I went out and bought one (the type with the magnets on a ring, hanging under the rotor). I put it on, and did some timing adjustments. I loved it! The car idled lower and was smoother.

I had the standard Pertronix coil on it. The first thing I noticed was that the tower of the coil was filling with oil. I replaced it with another. I noticed that this continued to happen, but the car still ran fine, so I did nothing.

Then I had posted this to another board, and was contacted by a member/dealer that they would replace my second Pertronix oil-filled coil with one of the epoxy ones. So I did that and the problem was solved.

I'm not sure how much time I drove it with that one on it, but I had some success with the car racing, so I never gave it another thought.

Then one day the car didn't want to stay running. After a day of headache, I managed to get it home with a limp. I couldn't think of what it could be. Then I decided to put the original factory coil back in it... problem solved! This was really weird. I figured that the problem was related to the coil's resistance, although it seemed to fall within Pertronix's spec. So I put an MSD 6A box on it, and figured that because of the wiring setup, the coil would be taken out of the equation.

I installed it without the diode, so after it fired up I had the (un)expected run-on. Before I got to shut it off, it died on it's own. I noticed a bit of a burning smell with it. I tried cranking it again, but it would not fire. As it turns out, the 6A box fried!!! I talked to MSD and they said that I did everything right and it should be fine. I took the box back and replaced the Pertronix with the points and condenser that came with the distributor when I bought it and immediately installed the Pertronix. I had the original coil back in... just like 1971 all over again. I fired it up and ran it that way until I sold it earlier this year. It didn't seem as smooth and it ran a little slower, but the "weirdness" was over.

This all also happened after burning out the fusible link that controls the headlights. Rich Henderson and I replaced the wiring with new fusible links and cut back the factory wire to where it was good and reused it.

I'm thinking that this also was part of it. More current was allowed to flow with the "clean" wiring that the coil got killed. The oil ones leaked with the bad original wires, and the epoxy could take it. But once there was a solid wiring job, it was gone.

Like I said, I loved it... until it killed me.
I'll probably be going with one of the Ignition Man's trigger/MSD setups for my next project.

 

Mine has been on my stage 1 for over 5 years, no problems. I know 7 other guys running them, no problems.

HEI's have failures too.

later
Tim

 

I put an Ignitor 2 system on my car last year. It ran great, but the computer module crapped out on me this year. I bought another one and have had no problems since.

I don't know if I was just unlucky and got a bad one, or if these things don't last a long time in hi performance applications.

I do know if it breaks again in the next 2 years, I'll just be going to the Ignitionman for an under the cap HEI system.

Phil

 

I went for a few years without problem, and ran great ET's for my mph. When I returned to the points I slowed down a bit and lost some of the smoothness.

But, I know something was up once I cleaned up my awful original wiring and then started frying everything that was attached to it - and this was using the original resistor wire and getting readings that were within the range that Pertronix's site mentioned.

I think I spent a lot of time posting about this on the board - it happened a little over a year ago.

With my next car, I'm going to go with the ignition man's setup.

 

Pertronix $0.02.

I've been running my Pertronix for at least two years-no problems. There is a strange phenom which only occurs on my Buick (I have 2 cars with Pertronix in them). When I start the Buick, I have to turn the key to "on" for five seconds and the car will start fine. Anything less and it cranks for five seconds, then backfires like "Uncle Buck's" LTD. It's great for waking the neighborhood or emptying a donut shop full of cops!
I don't understand it, but I'm happy with it and I'm not in danger of loosing a finger every six months adjusting the points in a front-mounted distributor.:laugh:

 

So far, 12 years, just over 1,350 Ignitors exorcised from people's distributors, and almost every one from electronics failure/issues.

IgnitorII does need to "charge" the transistors inside before it will make sustained spark, nice and refershing when you consider that 600,000 ton train bearing down on your driver's side from the car stalling flat in the middle of the crossing.

I've only seen 5 Ignitor rotors fling a magnet, the rest just plain failed electronically.

TimR, yes, HEI's do have failures, too, you are very right, but....most of them are caused by the in-cap coils being trash and are easily fixable, and every electronic part for an HEI, including the junker coils, is available just about every flat and wavy non-water covered surface of this planet. Ignitors aren't.