ignition advice wanted

[badger]

hi everyone
so the time to get the old girl back on the road is nearly here and i only have a few things left to do.
the owner has always had problems with the origanal ignition i quote (it would be nice to take her out and drive her home again)
in 3 years hes been out 5 times and only made it back on his own once with the igniton letting him down every time.
what will make you chuckle more is i've driven it to his daughters wedding and back and that was 120 mile round trip without a hitch lol.
so what is the most reliable ignition system out there ?
ive seen bluetooth set ups and the electronic replacements for the condenser and points .
i'd like to know what you've all got and what you think.
i'm pretty much a keep it origanal type guy but its reliability i'm looking for.

[cass3958]

I have had this discussion before with a mechanic friend of mine. I changed my dizzy over to an electronic ignition system from Accuspark. Nothing fancy as I am not racing and don't need to program it from my computer to change the advance and retard or get a better power curve. I did it because I wanted it, as you have said, for reliability. But........ and this is the argument put forward by my friend. If you have a break down due to points or condenser you can carry a £5 replacement set in the boot of your car and change it at the road side or the man from the AA can if you give it to him. A nail file across the points will clean them up and you get a good spark again for free.
With the electronic dizzy once the module goes wrong then it is a new £65 module which you can replace at the roadside if you have a spare in the boot but it is more difficult to diagnose at the roadside and more expensive.
I think I paid around £70 for the complete electronic dizzy rather than just buy a module and replace the points in the original dizzy as the module was only £5 cheaper. I have had to replace mine once in 7 years and that was only because I changed from Positive earth to Negative earth and the electronic modules are earth sensitive.

[Glyn Ruck]

I'm running the pointless Pertronix Ignitor in a refurbished & set up Lucas 22D (41063 A) distributor still positive earth (available negative earth) & one of their Flamethrower coils (debranded by yours truly). Most satisfied & she fires up on the button religiously. All housed under the distributor cap. I have a spare distributor with new points & condenser should I ever get stuck. Of course as long as I have an easy fix I will never have trouble. (touch wood). Genuine Jaguar leads & Champion bow tie caps.

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[John Quilter]

I'm running stock contact points and a Lucas Sport Coil. Over the years the only ignition failures I've had were poor quality black rotors that are aftermarket. The word is that only the red rotors are now reliable so that is what I run. The replacement black ones (not NOS Lucas) have a rivet in them that shorts out against the clip inside that holds it to the distributor shaft. Moss has a information sheet that fully described this and they supply the red ones as I believe the Distributor Doctor does. The defective rotors will fail suddenly with no warning while deteriorating spark plugs and plug wires will show up in hard starting and misfires under load. At least that has been my experience over many decades since 1966.

[Glyn Ruck]

From Distributor Doctor website.

Top quality RED ROTOR ARMS for Lucas distributors

I decided to make them in RED to differentiate them from the inferior black ones commonly available, and launched two sizes in the UK as a top quality, totally reliable solution in 2008.

Like most good ideas, we’ve suffered from low grade pirated copies being sold very cheaply, so BEWARE CHEAP COPIES OF MY RED ROTOR ARMS.
I'VE EVEN SEEN THEM POPPING UP IN GREEN LUCAS BOXES RECENTLY.
As of late Spring 2012 all my genuine red rotors will bear the DD marking.


My black one above supplied in 2013 was claimed to be genuine Lucas by Barratts. Came in Lucas box. At least it does not have the dreaded rivet.

NOS Genuine Lucas.

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[JCS]

The first time I ever changed a points and condenser system was as an apprentice in 1962. We were having problems maintaining points gaps on a variety of cars that were operating very long daily distances at fairly high speeds, out of UK. Quite urgently we needed a system that was ultra-reliable and without points, in fact we could have done with a system that had no rotors. At that time the problem was the rotors occasionally blew apart, particularly on Jaguars.

The system we used was Lumenition, more by luck than any judgement, but the system proved very reliable. We fitted this system on literally dozens of vehicles, and in later years as a fleet engineer, I had that system fitted on some Daimler DS420’s with LPG fuelling. At the time we never fitted the system to FoMoCo (Ford) but I did convert some dual point Rolls-Royce 4.25 ltr/4.5 ltr/4.8ltr engines with Delco distributers.

For the past 55+ years my own private petrol cars have always been fitted with Lumenition. I overcame the spares situation on the Jaguar by buying a new distributer for an E-Type from Holden Electric when they were on offer (£38). Terrible made Chinese copy, but OK to get you home, believe it or not, the rotor slot had been welded up and recut with a disc cutter!!

Lumenition make a few different systems, the lower end system seems adequate (forgot the model type). Although the packaging says “for Negative Earth” they will supply the wiring diagram to wire it for Positive Earth. I always use a Lumenition coil and no other, with a DD rotor, and the system has a ballast resistor.

I make no claim that this is the best system but, in my experience, it has been reliable when used with many car models, over hundreds of thousands of miles and in a variety of operating conditions. Fortunely a better experience than some of the USA conversions I have witnessed.

I would encourage you to triple the number of earth bonding cables between engine and chassis, and gearbox and chassis.

[NigelW]

I second JCS's choice of Lumenition ignition, I've been running them on my S Type and XJ for many years with the original distributors and DD rotors with no problems.

[Glyn Ruck]

Just to put matters into perspective.

Over 5,000,000 (5 million) Pertronix Ignitor units have been sold globally. Whereas Lumenition have only sold just more than half a million of their equivalent Worldwide over 43 years

Yes in the early & cheap days, Pertronix had a few minor issues ~ nothing chronic. Post move upmarket & use of the magnetic trigger ring they have been highly reliable & that was a very, very long time ago.

I too grew up in a family where to buy British was to buy better whereas in the words of Automotive Author, James Taylor "every indication was to the contrary"

[NigelW]

When I fitted the Lumenition systems to my cars over thirty years ago they were the "go to" electronic ignition system in the UK for performance cars including classic racing cars, Pertronix systems were more often fitted to Morris Minors and the like, probably hence why sales were for that sector were higher.

[Glyn Ruck]

In the early days Pertronix was the cheap supermarket brand. Today they have become a high quality, recognised & respected brand with their pricing model driven by economies of scale. They are not sitting on their butts. Development continues.

Today they make a fine product. Times change & this requires recognition. There is nothing superior about Lumenition today over Pertronix.

Fortunately globally this is recognised. One could buy either with confidence. Pertronix is winning the race ~ no pun intended.

Note: I have no affiliation with or to Pertronix. I do have a global perspective on the subject having retired from a global oilco job where I traveled 230 days a year for decades. Everybody I know with large classic car collections these days uses Pertronix. A Dallas buddy with 46 cars in his collection (mainly European) headed me that way.