Points to electronic igntion conversion

[jagwit]

Friend asked me to convert his '65 S1 to electronic ignition. What is the most cost effective solution?

I see that one can buy a complete 123 Dissy from SNG for GBP281 or the USB programmable one for GBP370 but I feel there HAS to be a more cost effective solution?

[Mark Gordon]

The cheapest option that I know of is to keep the original distributor if it is working well and install a Pertronix electronic ignition in place of the points for around $125. I've done that conversion on several of my earlier cars and they worked flawlessly. If the dizzy is toast, you can buy a Pertronix electronic distributor for about $275. I'm currently running the basic 123 Ignition distributor (for 3 years) and it's been magnificent.

[chrisfell]

You should be able to get Lumenition for half that.

[johnetype]

The most cost effective solution if the distributor is mechanically satisfactory, is to fit a Powerspark unit from Simonbbc for around £30. A unit for a +ve earth car may be a little more.

An easy fit and you can revert to points if you want to.

[jagwit]

The most cost effective solution if the distributor is mechanically satisfactory, is to fit a Powerspark unit from Simonbbc for around £30. A unit for a +ve earth car may be a little more.

An easy fit and you can revert to points if you want to.

Excellent! Thank you John. I BELIEVED there had to be a solution in this kind of price bracket.

The owner has accepted the cost of a 123 Bluetooth Distributor. The benefits are: fully programmable "centrifugal" and "vacuum" advance curves (via app on phone), no need to adjust timing ever again, rev limiter, immobiliser function (via app), brand new dissy (no issues with worn shafts), fully reversible (replace old dissy).

[jagwit]

The owner has accepted the cost of a 123 Bluetooth Distributor.

I tried fitting this today and was confronted with "old car showstopper". The method used by the OEM dissy cap was incompatible with the 123 dissy cap:

20180326_125618_Richtone(HDR).jpg (119.38 KiB) Viewed 2227 times

The original uses "acorn" screw-in fittings, whereas the 123 uses modern plug in type type terminals for the dissy cap. Fortunately I have enough old leads to get the plug-in terminals from to terminate the HT leads with.

Lesson: If you do go for this solution either:
1) get a new suitable set of HT wires compatible with the 123 Dissy;
2) have 7 plug-in dissy cap terminals on hand to terminate the HT wires with.