<VV> Yet another Pertronix Ignitor question

[Bill Elliott]

Just to expound on my comments....

First, if you'll recall, a couple of years ago there was a rash of Ignitor failures, leading people to decry the 
unit as "unreliable".  On every failure that was announced on VV, I privately asked the poster how it was 
hooked up. Every single one was hooked up to the coil. I later posted of these findings, asking people to 
post if they had an Ignitor hooked up to a pure 12v AND had a failure. Only two people responded 
positively. Now all this would make sense if virtually everyone hooked up to the coil, but from other 
discussions it seems that it's about half and half... giving the coil-hookups a much higher failure rate. 
There was even some discussion about how low voltage could indeed damage the unit... this did not 
come from me as my EE is a bit rusty.

But the REAL issue is drivability. First Ignitor I installed, I was very unhappy with. Seems I had a mid-rpm 
stumble. On advice from another Corvair guy, I ran a straight 12v and that fixed it.  Since then, I've 
helped several people diagnose poor running with their Pertronix. In every single case, giving it a pure 
12v cured the issues.

Now is the REAL problem a breakdown in the resistor wire giving much less than the speced voltage on 
occasion? Likely.... but running a pure 12V wire seems to fix that... and I'd guess that running that single 
wire is easier/cheaper than replacing/fixing the OEM harness. I have never seen any Pertronix 
instructions allowing you to hook up to reduced voltage, but I have been told they do exist. I've installed 
around 20 Ignitors (Corvair and non-Corvair).

But if it works for you, great! As I mentioned, so folks seem to be able to run Platinums as well... and 
other's inability to do so may indeed be related to the same breakdown in the wiring harness... 

So just as I wouldn't recommend someone to run Platinums, I also strongly recommend wiring an Ignitor 
to 12v. You _might_ not have problems if you do either, but experience says you _won't_ have problems 
if you runs Supers and a pure 12v.

Bill

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:34:48 -1100, Larry Forman wrote:

>I only run Pertronix, Flamethrowers, Seth's wires and Bosch 7502s aka W8ACs.  I also read in the Pertronix literature, AS I RECALL!, that you can wire it 
directly across the coil, and all mine are wired up that way.  I agree that it might be better to wire it up the other way, as Bob Helt explained, but that is 
certainly a less convenient to wire configuration.  Why did I do that, when I realize that it is better to wire it differently, as well as: floss daily, brush for at least 
two minutes after every meal, exercise 30 minutes/day, pray, meditate, contribute to my favorite charity, ensure I pay all my income taxes, etc, etc.  The list 
goes on and on.  Sometimes there is just not enough time in the day to do everything that I "should" do.  So I pick and chose what works for me.  You now 
know where Ignitors fall.  I MIGHT rewire them some day, maybe.

>For now, I have not seen failures or intermittents or issues on maybe 5 or 6 of these installations.  Will you see any difference or failures with either 
configuration?  I'll take bets on that one.  BTW, have you flossed today??   LOL.

>Larry

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bill Elliott" <Corvair@fnader.com>

>Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:28:01 -0400
>To: "pkw@peachgrove.com" <pkw@peachgrove.com>,"virtualvairs@corvair.org" <virtualvairs@corvair.org>
>Subject: Re: <VV> Yet another Pertronix Ignitor question

>> The author is correct. Though many (included some well-repected members of this forum) have 
>> experienced no bad issues when hooking directly to the coil, many of us have (myself included). But 
>> then, some people seem to be able to run Bosch Platinums while the rest of us can't.
>> 
>> To my knowledge, no one has experienced negative issues when using a pure 12V source... and it has 
>> been suggested that the rash of Pertronix failures are related to low voltage situations. Except for the 
>> very first generation of Ignitors, I've only heard of a couple of failures when the unit was fed a pure 12v.
>> 
>> Bill Elliott