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So I installed Pertronix on my truck this morning (single points dizzy) fired for half a second then nada.... I put the old points back in and it ran fine. I upgraded the coil to a flame thrower as well. Any body else have issues with new units? Summit sending me a new one no questions asked! Anyway, I've used the product before and had no issues, just wondering if anybody else had a bad one right out of the box?
That's worrisome, I wonder if I installed it wrong…?? Like I said above I installed it on previous cars, red to red, black to black, seems simple enough…
Yes, you do get bad parts out of the box. That said, Ford actually used a 6 volt coil and resistive wire to protect the coil even including the Duraspark. The newer Pertronix modules require a separate 12v power source instead of wiring to pos side of coil and have a 8v threshold to work properly. If a 12v coil is used, the resistive wire must be bypassed. Add in old wiring and bad connections, you may not be getting sufficient voltage to operate. Do a search on any forum or Google and you will find hundreds of posts regarding these problems. Wired properly, using the correct coil and they are dead reliable.
Make sure you dont have any sollid copper core ignition vires. That thing alone kills an electronic ignition system.
If you put back the points again make sure you have a proper condensor that can handle the power from the coil. Many aftermarket coils is belivering 35000 or more volts. Thats about tvice as much as the stock coil.
We’ll… one step forward two steps back!Yep, I have the resistor wire. Read nine volts at the positive side of the coil. Went ahead and took out the resistor, spliced the wire and now have 11+ volts at the positive side of the coil. Re-installed the ignitor and no go.. Further tested by running an ignition sourced lead directly to the coil and still no go (13+ volts). My guess is the ignitor is bad (hope I didn’t hose it by the initial low voltage). After all that, I stuck the old points back in and got it going again. Not a daily driver so good enough for now until the new ignitor comes in. What really stinks is I noticed my fuel gauge went inop again GREAT…….
The resistor needs to be eliminated with the pertronixs distributor or it wont work. You might have fried it if you left it in. Remove the resistor with the new one and you should be good. I can post a pic of mine wired in if you need it just let me know.
The resistor needs to be eliminated with the pertronixs distributor or it wont work. You might have fried it if you left it in. Remove the resistor with the new one and you should be good. I can post a pic of mine wired in if you need it just let me know.
Tim
Posting a pic wouldn't hurt! I eliminated the resistor altogether but seeing what others have done is another verification for me and likely others down the line. Thinking about eliminating the pink wire altogether and just rewiring it. Forty years with an inline resistor heating and cooling likely hasn't done that little pink wire any good (tough old wire!).
Need a little help….So I installed the Pertonix on my truck and I think I’m the one that hosed it up. I didn’t realize at the time the truck had an inline resistor, I believe this is what fried the ignitor. I went ahead and paid for the second unit but it’s not come yet.
I re-installed the old points but noticed the pink wire was getting very hot (I’ve come to the conclusion that it has a built in resistance or the gauge is too small to carry the 12 volts).
Long story short, I tore apart the wiring harness to completely replace the pink wire with a new heavier gauge wire (heck of a job).
Second, I left the flame thrower coil in but it would barely run. So I re-installed the old coil and walla it runs again! Only problem, the coil gets really hot… To the point I'm not comfortable with it.
This all leads to the following questions, is the flame thrower coil compatible with normal points or did I likely fry that as well? Should I just get another 12volt coil (without the inline resistor stamp on the outside of the coil)?
Remember any resistance wire is going to get toasty, if instead the coil includes internal resistance it will get hotter than an equivalent coil. If you run the numbers to find the wattage, maybe on the order of a 30 or 40 watt bulb? They are filled with oil for cooling.
If you eliminate the resistor wire then use a coil that includes an internal resistor, but not both. Points will burn too if used without some resistance during ignition RUN.
the stock coil is designed to run on that 8 volts it was getting not 12. that is why it is getting so hot.
i have installed over 100 pertronix ignitor 1 units in the past 35 years, and only had one go bad. and that was within one minute of starting. i never eliminated the resister wire, and ran them all with the stock coils. they are all still running except for two trucks that were wrecked. from 331 FT engines, a few "Y" blocks, a slew of 289 fords, 283 and 327 chevys, a bunch of 273 and 318 chrysler wedge engines, the 428 in my 7 litre, to 4 cylinder farm tractors.
Thanks fella's, I can’t say it's getting any clearer. The instructions supplied by Pertonix was less than helpful. Since I was using the flame thrower II, I eliminated the ballast resistor altogether and used their figure 2 diagram (see link). For whatever reason it didn’t work, I’m now not 100% sure that I caused any problems at all.
After more research I found a diagram that other people are using, which makes the wiring completely different than the way I set it up, per Pertronix.
I still want to use the flame thrower coil but I don’t fully understand why all connections attach to one side of the resistor? Why can’t the restore be eliminated altogether?
I see two options, rewire the resistor back into the circuit using either the stock coil or the flame thrower II diagram above. Or, am I missing something?
As a side note, I bench tested the new flame thrower II coil using a multi-meter. On the primary side it has 00.6 Ohms, on the secondary side it only measured 8,600 Ohms (specs call for 10,000). Could that be my initial problem, why the ignitor was faulty, could the coil also be bad?
It helps to understand the hows and whys of the original setup in order to proceed with modification. The points and coil and condenser form a resonant circuit.
The coil is a step-up transformer, it changes the low voltage across the primary from say, 8 volts high current, to 20,000+ low current voltage every time the points open, induced across the secondary windings.
The coil (and points) during starting only, sees a full 12+ volts on the primary and thus a little extra juice at the plugs, for cold weather starting ease. The resistor wire is bypassed during the start sequence. This is a source of confusion.
SO - if you install an Ignitor (Pertronix) it doesn't care about the voltage. In fact, it needs 12 volts+ all the time. If you have a resistance coil AND a resistor wire, it may not fire or be erratic. HOWEVER, if you remove the resistor wire, the STOCK coil, with no internal resistor, may not like for 12+ volts all the time. It may burn up. The Pertronix instructions make sense depending on what your setup is - their coil instructions are seemingly in contradiction simply because some people still run points and Ignitor users don't necessarily use a Flamethrower coil.
Bypass the resistor wire. Don't hang anything else on this circuit. Use heavy gauge automotive wire directly to the new Flamethrower 1.3 ohm coil. Use the Ignitor. Make sure your cap, wires, and plugs are in good shape to handle the new increased voltage output. Make sure the engine and other ground connections at firewall and internally to distributor are clean clean clean.Check for arcing in darkened garage at night &c.
I've already cut out the resistor wire altogether, it makes since that it should now work "without" the inline resistor and resistor wire using Pertronix diagram 2.
The flame thrower II coil I bought is a 0.6 Ohms, why do you say use a 1.3 Ohm coil? I just don’t want to connect everything back up and have something go bad again. The only difference in the way I originally connected it would have been the resistor wire (I don’t believe that would have fried the ignitor) if anything it should have melted the wire first.
The points (heh) being don't run a STOCK non-resistance coil without an external resistor. All the Flamethrower coils have (some). They will be fine. You will burn up points eventually perhaps, with a 0.6 ohm coil however. Make sense? Does it expressly state something like "for use with Ignitor only" (guessing). May be OK.
The instructions for the coil will explain what's required. Should be fine so long as the Ignitor module itself isn't floating above ground (clean and tight low resistance) it should be pretty much bulletproof. So long as we're seeing continuity in both the primary and secondary windings of the coil, and they are in the ballpark resistance figures as you mention should be OK.
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