VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Electrical - 12 volt Electronic Ignition

I have upgraded to 12 volts on my '41 Chevy Coupe. I have been told to go to "electronic ignition" instead of having points.
Do you recommend this move? Thanks for the help,

No. I did it as an experiment and the electronic ignition was a total disaster. Stay with the point system.....it is easy and fool proof.

We had a '33 Master Coupe on the Southern Fall Tour that had ignition problems. It had been converted to 12 volts and a Pertronix electronic ignition. Changed coil without much success. Ran much better with dropping resister, new coil and points installed. When points go bad you can still make it home. When electronic acts up you can walk back home or ride in the the tow truck cab. That is unless on a VCCA tour with fellow tourists with tow ropes, spare parts and experience!!!!

Gee, that doesn't sound good to me, I just installed an EFI in my 54, haven't had it out yet to see how its going. What was the problem with your experiment? If you caught my report on my problem with my turn signals, I am going crazy trying to connect the wires correctly. Since it's snowing over here today, I guess I will go out to the garage and crawl under my dash again, and that's getting difficult now for this old man. John

I've installed pertronix on several vehicles converted to 12 volt. Have never had one fail me yet. I like that I am able to keep the stock distributor.

Hey Air Force!

Haven't seen you in a long time. Glad to see that you are still vertical and taking in air. We need to get together one of these days.

Okay, on the Pertronix........it was only installed for one week before it failed. I had it in a 1970 Impala and it was on a Friday, late afternoon at 5:00. Heavy traffic at the time and we were on a main highway in the left-hand lane, first in line at a traffic light waiting for the light to turn green when the Pertronix failed. Car was totally dead, traffic was piling up behind us and we had no where to go. Finally people got out of their cars and helped to manually push the car into the intersection where we made a left turn onto a side street and then into a business parking lot. There we were stranded due to the Pertronix failure. Finally got the car into a mechanics shop where the distributor was changed back to the point system and the car fired right up. Never had a problem again. I have talked to others that had issues with the Pertronix as well. I will never put a Pertronix in a car. The point system is almost trouble free and the points can be repaired along side of the road if need be.

This Petronix unit your referring to, is it a replacement unit that fits in the original distributor? If that's the case I have completely replaced my original distributor with a new EFI unit with a specific coil that's supposed to put out 5000 volts, the distributor won't run on a lessor voltage. I can't wait to get it out of the garage and drive it. Of course I have to get these turn signals working so people will know which way I'm going.
Yes, if I get over your way I'll try and stop by.

Yes, the Pertronix unit fits into the distributor to convert it to electronic ignition.

Ya, if you ever come over the mountain again, give me a call and we can get together!