Electronic Vs. Points

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It's a pretty well known fact......or so I thought, that point type ignitions will perform as good or better than electronic in some instances as long as everything is in proper order.

It's all there was for how long? How many records were set and broken with points? I would be willing to bet that point type ignitions have gone faster than over 90% of the people on this forum with electronic. Maybe more. Especially counting magnetos that use points as a trigger.

In the end, what the hell difference does it make as long as you're in the hobby and havin fun?
 
RustyRatRod said:
In the end, what the hell difference does it make as long as you're in the hobby and havin fun?
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Ding! We have a winner.

Where's my $500 samolians?

zspyj9.jpg


-Kurt
 
The thing that bothers me is people spending time and energy on parts that are not really necessary.
I sell electronic ignition stuff all the time, and I'll continue selling it. When people ask me if its worth while, I tell them that unless they are pumping huge compression, big boost, big spray or super high RPM, their money is best spent elsewhere.
Then there is a reliability thing. A good set of points will go 25-30,000 miles with adjustments made every 5000 or so. How many people put 5000 miles on their vintage cars in a year (mine go that in a little over a month, but I'm the exception.)
If you consider taking 10 minutes to clean and gap your points every time you change the oil too much to deal with, you're in the wrong ******* hobby!
 
whitepunkonnitro said:
The thing that bothers me is people spending time and energy on parts that are not really necessary.
I sell electronic ignition stuff all the time, and I'll continue selling it. When people ask me if its worth while, I tell them that unless they are pumping huge compression, big boost, big spray or super high RPM, their money is best spent elsewhere.
Then there is a reliability thing. A good set of points will go 25-30,000 miles with adjustments made every 5000 or so. How many people put 5000 miles on their vintage cars in a year (mine go that in a month, but I'm the exception.)
If you consider taking 10 minutes to clean and gap your points every time you change the oil too much to deal with, you're in the wrong ******* hobby!
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Well said. I have a restored Mallory dual point Double Life I am going to use for the Hemi in my rat truck. It will work good.
 
whitepunkonnitro said:
I've got $500 bucks that says we take any normally aspirated, carbed, street/strip style Mopar that operates under 6 grand, and we back to back a curved single point vs identical setup electronic and run them both off at the same track, same day and see which one goes faster.

A difference of more than .005 averaged after three runs gets the cash.
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I'm in. The electronic needs to be an MSD and the car needs to currently be running on points. I'd put in for that bet any day. I've seen the difference going from points to MSD and it was night and day. Not only are you getting a hotter, stronger and physically larger spark. You're getting more of them through the crank rotation. WE were able to go up 2 jet sizes and keep the AFR the same.
 
roccodart440 said:
I'm in. The electronic needs to be an MSD and the car needs to currently be running on points. I'd put in for that bet any day. I've seen the difference going from points to MSD and it was night and day. Not only are you getting a hotter, stronger and physically larger spark. You're getting more of them through the crank rotation. WE were able to go up 2 jet sizes and keep the AFR the same.
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Might as well test a stock Mopar ECU against the 6AL while you're at it.

Come to think of it, if you want to make an end-all test, test the points system against every compatible electronic ignition box out there - HEI, Duraspark, and all the aftermarket variations thereof. Nobody will be happy until all bases are covered.

-Kurt
 
This has been a very interesting topic to me as a newbie.
I had a fella here looking at my car which has a 318, pretty much stock with a bit of a cam in it and the first thing the old timer says is "get rid of the points and half of this wiring crap, it will work much better on electronic and have way better throttle response" (he knows mopars a bit and has had the same 69 dart for 40 years)
I was gonna order the parts and switch it over but now Im starting to think maybe I wont if I dont get much of an improvement as I was led to believe, I would prefer to keep it looking stockish under the hood anyway.
 
Realistically, top HP numbers don't mean near as much to me as what it does at idle through 3500. You know, where it spends the vast majority of it's time. I also love the adjustability of the more modern stuff. I.e. start retard, multiple rev limits, timing retard. All with the twist of a tiny screwdriver.

olddog12 said:
This has been a very interesting topic to me as a newbie.
I had a fella here looking at my car which has a 318, pretty much stock with a bit of a cam in it and the first thing the old timer says is "get rid of the points and half of this wiring crap, it will work much better on electronic and have way better throttle response" (he knows mopars a bit and has had the same 69 dart for 40 years)
I was gonna order the parts and switch it over but now Im starting to think maybe I wont if I dont get much of an improvement as I was led to believe, I would prefer to keep it looking stockish under the hood anyway.
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The old timer has lived and learned. There's a reason points got left behind so many years ago.

If you want a stock look. Mount the ignition box under the dash. You'll never see any of the wires. There are only a few anyway.

Black and red go to the battery.
orange to switched power
purple and green to the dizzy
one wire to the tach port.

You can literally hide every wire except the distributor wires.
 
olddog12 said:
This has been a very interesting topic to me as a newbie.
I had a fella here looking at my car which has a 318, pretty much stock with a bit of a cam in it and the first thing the old timer says is "get rid of the points and half of this wiring crap, it will work much better on electronic and have way better throttle response" (he knows mopars a bit and has had the same 69 dart for 40 years)
I was gonna order the parts and switch it over but now Im starting to think maybe I wont if I dont get much of an improvement as I was led to believe, I would prefer to keep it looking stockish under the hood anyway.
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Put pertronix in it. Be stock looking and the benefits of electronic ign.
 
The prob with points in the traditional ignition, was they bore the load of firing the coil,, and used to arc and burn out, and needed to be adjusted (dwell)/replaced for that reason...

Using points to trigger an electonic/HEI ignition, wouldn't have much load,, and subsequently would seldom/never need adjustment/replacement... jmo...
 
roccodart440 said:
I'm in. The electronic needs to be an MSD and the car needs to currently be running on points. I'd put in for that bet any day. I've seen the difference going from points to MSD and it was night and day. Not only are you getting a hotter, stronger and physically larger spark. You're getting more of them through the crank rotation. WE were able to go up 2 jet sizes and keep the AFR the same.
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Points will trigger an MSD the same way an Electronic ignition will, so what are you trying to say?
 
Both might be behind the GM LS coil (one per cylinder). At least the LS will be popping long after the MSD box died, especially if a Chinese knock-off (all have same SN). But, that requires a crank trigger, and spark computer. Modern Hemis have similar (even 2 plugs per cyl). The ultimate was to be Ford's "head gasket w/ spark fingers", but I don't think it ever went production.

In "one coil" world, another option is MSD's "Stacker". You simply wire it across the coil terminals and it adds its umph when it senses the command from the factory box (or even points?). I have one, but never tried it, and they stopped selling it (reliable?, no clue). They do still sell a "Stacker 4" and "Stacker 8" for cars with multiple coils.
 
I went electronic GM HEI style on this 318 in the 72. No sense in tracking down a points distributor / coil and all the associated stuff with putting it back to stock. Original that came in the car was basically a gutted housing by the previous joe dirt owner. Cleaned up some wiring in the process and now I have clean 12v under the hood and in the car compliments of the Mad Mod... Just depends on what you want to do and where you plan on going with the car in the future. At some point I will pull the engine out of this thing and clean it all up when the new motor build happens, then it will be MSD...
 
Rapid Robert "then plug in the can to ported" is not correct unless he has a emissions computer.

Think about how the vac can works.

Jim and I have been doing this for 95 years combined and we've never hooked up a Vac Can to Ported on a performance application unless it has a computer to retard the timing.

Easily 2000 distributors curved and set-up every year for the past 20 years or more and 75% of those were Mopars.

We Engineered and build the HRR688 Ignition Box for Mopars with over 3000 in service worldwide and only 1 true failure in nearly 4 years.

I think we know what were talking about when it comes to Mopar Ignition.
 
I think it's time to put in a fresh set of points. the dwell is a little off after 3 pages.
 
fishmens67 said:
I think it's time to put in a fresh set of points. the dwell is a little off after 3 pages.
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Should have used electronic ignition!

EDIT: Electronic ignition wins, thus looks like I win the bet! You can PayPal me the $500 anytime, Tony! ;)

-Kurt
 
RustyRatRod said:
Well said. I have a restored Mallory dual point Double Life I am going to use for the Hemi in my rat truck. It will work good.
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x2. Not once has slew rate been mentioned. That's where most electronic setups fall behind when racing. Here's an instance where the factory and the pros have tried to help, but to little avail.
 
whitepunkonnitro said:
OK electronic/HEI guys, explain this:http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/ccrp-9812-ignition-performance-test/
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Not taking sides here, but the difference between points and stock HEI is very minimal, and you'll probably never feel it on the butt dyno. The Performance Distributors unit does stand out, but I'm curious what would happen if the PD coil had been hooked up to the stock HEI dizzy.

That brings up an interesting question (in the interest of standardizing everything as much as possible) Is it possible to use an E-core, low-resistance coil on a points ignition system without frying anything?

-Kurt
 
cudak888 said:
Not taking sides here, but the difference between points and stock HEI is very minimal, and you'll probably never feel it on the butt dyno. The Performance Distributors unit does stand out, but I'm curious what would happen if the PD coil had been hooked up to the stock HEI dizzy.

That brings up an interesting question (in the interest of standardizing everything as much as possible) Is it possible to use an E-core, low-resistance coil on a points ignition system without frying anything?

-Kurt
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The difference is minimal but none the less, the stock single point distributor made higher peak torque numbers than either of the HEIs.
If a quality Dual Point had been included in that test, it more than likely would have beaten the two HEI setups in HP numbers as well.
 
Stop worrying about peak numbers. Worry about idle, longevity and 800-3,000rpm.
 
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