Subject: Re: harpers electronic ignition

Author: Allan Johnson

Date: May 7, 2003, 3:29 PM

Post ID: 1712904837

Going to digress a bit from bikes and talk about cars for a moment, but its
relevant to the current discussion.
I've ben fooling around with old cars even longer than with bikes. I used

be a big fan of points, for all the usual reasons. (Simple, tried and true,
I don't need no mysterious voodoo electronics to complicate things, etc.) I
always bought high quality points and kept them clean and gapped to spec.
The points set ups always seemed to work well for me, and I saw zero reason
to change.
Then, a good friend with a car quite similar to mine practically insisted I
try the new set-up he'd installed in his car, a little gizmo that fit under
the distributor cap and replaced the points called a Pertronix Ignitor.
To make a long story short, despite fresh, correctly gapped points in my
distributor, installing his Pertronix system with NO other changes made a
noticable difference. Not in power particularly,'though it certainly didn't
hurt in that regard, but the engine idled smoother, started easier and was
noticably more crisp through the rev range. I took his Pertronix out,
reinstalled and gapped the points and the difference was patently obvious.

ordered my own unit and have been using it ever since. Ultimately I
discovered that mileage had improved slightly. (Not that a '69 Cougar with

healthy 351 is a car for those particularly concerned about gas mileage.)
Anyhow, This isn't a commercial for Pertronix, that just happens to be the
points to electronic conversion I'm familiar with. And I'm certainly not
endorsing whatever Harper's is selling. The Pertronix unit for a V8 engine
cost about 1/5th of what Harper's is asking for their unit for a
two-cylinder bike, which does seem a little out of whack. The point I'm
trying to make is that the car ran and drove JUST FINE with the points. The
electronic ignition still made a positive difference.
Yes, I keep a set of points in the glove box, "just in case". But haven't
needed them yet in over ten years. Its all a matter of personal preference,
of course, but I'm another that will be curious to see how Allan's
experiment works out.

Jay Williams



From: jason telford <jr-@avalon.net>
Reply-To: Loopfram-@topica.com
To: Loopfram-@topica.com
Subject: RE: harpers electronic ignition
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 17:20:48 +0000

Oh, come on now. In the grand scheme of things, $300 isn't all that
much and if it makes life easier in the long run, then go for it.
Personally, I don't mind points. They seem to work fine for my needs,
but I don't particularly enjoy setting them. I'm going to stick with
them for now, but I am real curious how this experiment of Allan's turns
out.

Cheers,
Jason

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