Has anyone had experience with switching out the old points with one of the upgraded solid-state electronic ignition systems such as made by Pertronix? the are in the OPGI catalog for 105.95 any input will be appreciated. thanks

contact Bryan Shook, he has done it on his elcamino. here's his e-mail below.........
elcamino72@hotmail.com

I've done it on my dad '57 Pontiac. It is a very simple and straight forward install. The conversion has been done for a year now, and hasn't skipped a beat since 8) WELL worth the time a money spent!!

I used a Pertronix unit in my '67 because I wanted a stock appearance. It ran well for about 5-6 years, but it doesn't get driven as much as I would like.

Last year, before I put it away for the Winter, I noticed an infrequent miss at freeway speeds. It didn't seem to be a "show stopper".

This Spring, when I got it out, it had an erratic miss and occasional backfire. It would run good for long periods, then run terrible. I figured bad/old gas or a failing plug wire. Then, it started to run reeeaaallllly bad. When I pulled the distributor, I found the rotating wheel was rubbing on the Pertronix unit causing all kinds of erratic spark.

The problem I had initially with the Pertronix was the rotating wheel. (This is their early model.) You couldn't seem to get it flat when mounted, even shimmed, which caused the air gap to vary widely.

I've got Pertronix' newer style still in the box. I never tried it because their "Tech" people couldn't give me an answer about whether the thing should run on a constant 12v. I didn't want to cobble up a new wiring harness.

Many years ago I tried the original Petronix on my 1966 Corvette and had the exact same problem that MI2600 had. After the second unit failed I switched to a MSD Pro Billet distributor. However the new Petronix conversions are far better and my cousin has had one on his 409 Belair with no problems.

Glad I looked here. I just put the Petronix kit on my 67 dist. I sure hope it works fine for me. 8O I am a ways from having a complete motor, but hey its worth a try to save the bucks for a new dist. I was wanting a pro billet Mallory, but that $200+ price tag is a tough piece o' jerky to chew. :huh:

A little update from my earlier post.

I went out to start the '67 a couple days ago. It's in semi-storage. I noticed the factory tach wasn't working. I think the above Pertronix problem caused the tach to implode.

Is this involuntary machine-ocide?