Streetspark/DC ignition?

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Tanman74

Tanman74

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Went to a swap meet the other day and someone was selling a dual point from the brand DC ignition, apparently a former part of Mr. Gasket, for a small block. Never heard of this but I picked it up for a future old style hotrod or street machine project, can't find a lot about these online. If anyone has information about the brand or how well the distributors perform or where to get replacement parts (not sure if I can just use any old points or rotors in it I've been spoiled with most of the mopars I've worked on having electronic ignition) that would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Tanman74 said:
Went to a swap meet the other day and someone was selling a dual point from the brand DC ignition, apparently a former part of Mr. Gasket, for a small block. Never heard of this but I picked it up for a future old style hotrod or street machine project, can't find a lot about these online. If anyone has information about the brand or how well the distributors perform or where to get replacement parts (not sure if I can just use any old points or rotors in it I've been spoiled with most of the mopars I've worked on having electronic ignition) that would be appreciated.

Thanks.
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@halifaxhops
 
DC should stand for Du Coil. They ran 2 coils if I remember correctly. This is a picture of Lee Smiths Crazee Cuda, circa '72, at Eddyville, IA. You can see the 2 coil wires. That's Ray Murphys Challenger in the back ground. I was pit crew at the time.

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Photos or it didn't happen. DuCoil is what I first thought. I only had my hands on one of them. Two points, coils, condensers. Each runs half the engine. If the points are not set carefully and equally, the timing will be off on half the engine

"Any old" points? Don't know why you'd think that LOL. There's more than one set of dual points just for the Mopar stuff.
 
67Dart273 said:
Photos or it didn't happen. DuCoil is what I first thought. I only had my hands on one of them. Two points, coils, condensers. Each runs half the engine. If the points are not set carefully and equally, the timing will be off on half the engine
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That sounds like a really **** setup
 
67Dart273 said:
Photos or it didn't happen. DuCoil is what I first thought. I only had my hands on one of them. Two points, coils, condensers. Each runs half the engine. If the points are not set carefully and equally, the timing will be off on half the engine

"Any old" points? Don't know why you'd think that LOL. There's more than one set of dual points just for the Mopar stuff.
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Mallory had one similar, one coil, one condenser, 2 points different cylinders for each set of points. Nice distributors, very cool caps, luckily I was real good at setting points.
 
66fs said:
Mallory had one similar, one coil, one condenser, 2 points different cylinders for each set of points. Nice distributors, very cool caps, luckily I was real good at setting points.
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Exactly. Rev-Pol I think. I think you could tie the points together and use just one coil, but you still had the problem of carefully adusting points. Those were the "4 lobe" distributors. I was never a real big fan of Mallory, but by the time I was interested in better ignition, the 70 440-6 had already come with a factory cast iron dual point, and I also scored a factory hemi tach drive which I used. I paid 20--25 bucks for it!!! I screwed around with an Accel as well. They of course had adjustable mechanical advance. I also messed with both Delta and SST CDI ignition systems.
 
67Dart273 said:
Photos or it didn't happen. DuCoil is what I first thought. I only had my hands on one of them. Two points, coils, condensers. Each runs half the engine. If the points are not set carefully and equally, the timing will be off on half the engine
Click to expand...

s-l1600 (1).jpg


s-l1600.jpg


s-l1600 (2).jpg
 
I'm not sure that they didn't make a normal dizzy, with one coil, but it's been too long ago.
 
If it is a dual point design, it means it has twice as many failure points [ pardon the pun ] of a single point dist......& will never be good as an electronically triggered dist....
 
Bewy said:
If it is a dual point design, it means it has twice as many failure points [ pardon the pun ] of a single point dist......& will never be good as an electronically triggered dist....
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With todays technology that may be true, (though with so much being made in China these days I have my doubts) but in the 70's electronic ignitions were reviled by many in the same way EFI is reviled by many today... It's easy to not trust the new fangled whiz bang stuff.. "Give me my Holley/Carter carb & my dual point distributors..."

The DC units had a lot of nice features, they have ball bearings supporting the shaft, they use ordinally Mopar points... These are regular dual points, not Duo-coil or Duo-spark... the points are staggered to allow more dwell without excessive point gap... Big point gaps lead to point bounce..
 
That was the basis for dual points: increased dwell time which allowed higher rpms. Overnight, the GM HEI in 1974 made that system obsolete. It had, as do other elect ign systems, other benefits as well:
- no rubbing block to wear & retard timing
- no points to arc & change timing/cause misfires
- no points to bounce & cause erratic timing
 
Bewy said:
That was the basis for dual points: increased dwell time which allowed higher rpms. Overnight, the GM HEI in 1974 made that system obsolete. It had, as do other elect ign systems, other benefits as well:
- no rubbing block to wear & retard timing
- no points to arc & change timing/cause misfires
- no points to bounce & cause erratic timing
Click to expand...

And they stopped revving at 4,500 rpm.
 
Bewy said:
That was the basis for dual points: increased dwell time which allowed higher rpms. Overnight, the GM HEI in 1974 made that system obsolete. It had, as do other elect ign systems, other benefits as well:
- no rubbing block to wear & retard timing
- no points to arc & change timing/cause misfires
- no points to bounce & cause erratic timing
Click to expand...
All Hail GM...Except Chrysler had electronic ignition starting in 71...
 
Did some research and part comparisons and it looks like it uses a GM cap and rotor and ford innards.
 
Tanman74 said:
Did some research and part comparisons and it looks like it uses a GM cap and rotor and ford innards.
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GM Cap has a sliding window/door & the rotor is screwed on...That could be a FORD cap & Rotor...

I thought I remembered the points being Mopar but it's only been 100 years since I worked on one...

Ford Points Cap & Rotor would make sense...

GM Cap
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Post #15.

Uh..no they didn't. If you are quoting Vizard, read the full story.
 
1WildRT.
Well aware that Chrys was the first US car maker to offer elec ign as standard equipment. But it was not as good as GMs HEI for a number of reasons. Notice nobody is making Chrys dist/elec ign for Fords & Chevs....but plenty are making HEIs for non-GM cars....including Chrys. Why would that be????

If you want to get really picky.....as an option, GM offered transistor ign in 1964 that used a magnetic pointless dist for triggering. Maybe Chrys did too, not sure.
 
Bewy said:
1WildRT.
Well aware that Chrys was the first US car maker to offer elec ign as standard equipment. But it was not as good as GMs HEI for a number of reasons. Notice nobody is making Chrys dist/elec ign for Fords & Chevs....but plenty are making HEIs for non-GM cars....including Chrys. Why would that be????

If you want to get really picky.....as an option, GM offered transistor ign in 1964 that used a magnetic pointless dist for triggering. Maybe Chrys did too, not sure.
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Max Wedges and Race Hemis had them too. So did Ford 406 and 427.
 
Bewy said:
1WildRT.
Well aware that Chrys was the first US car maker to offer elec ign as standard equipment. But it was not as good as GMs HEI for a number of reasons. Notice nobody is making Chrys dist/elec ign for Fords & Chevs....but plenty are making HEIs for non-GM cars....including Chrys. Why would that be????

If you want to get really picky.....as an option, GM offered transistor ign in 1964 that used a magnetic pointless dist for triggering. Maybe Chrys did too, not sure.
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Yes Chrysler offered transistor Ign too...

Actually MSD's distributors are based on the Mopar/Ford design... Oh, MSD's are used in Fords, Chevies, Pontiacs and a lot of other vehicles...
 
You'll never convince me the GM HEI was the tits compared to everybody else's. The only reason people say that is because it was an all in on unit and required one single hot wire. The Chrysler electronic ignition and Ford Duraspark were both just as good, just different.
 
The GM HEI used an E core that is faaaar more efficient than the canister coil Chrys used. It had a 0.6 ohm primary & no bal res. Chrys coils were about 1.5 ohms plus 0.5 ohm for the bal res.

There is no comparison. GM cars had mostly 060 plug gaps, some had 080. Chry had 035 plug gaps. The plug gap is a measure of the energy of the ign system.

The only real benefit, & it was a very good one, of the Chr system was that it eliminated the points; but the performance of the ign system was still reduced by using the same coil & Bal Res used with the points system.

Not sure what Ford used.
 
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