electronic ignition

cheers for the info, I'll look into, I still want to fit a electronic ignition in

Going to get our local gas mechanic in to tune the 4x4 since it had a new cam and gears fitted, it was only tuned for fuel as he was not a licensed gas person when he did the cam.

We have two different mechanics in town, one is Gas licensed.

It was running fine on gas up too a couple of weeks ago, then it started to cough and jump.

I've also have to replace the water in the radiator with coolant too at some point.

I've checked the coil and its reading 1.5 ohms thou it was a little hard getting in there so I pull it out tomorrow and place it on the bench and re test it, the Ballast Resistor does say on the top 1.26 ohms, so I'm hoping the coil is 1.5

I've done a lot of work to my beast, You can view the 4x4 here if you wish. http://fj62.rockinghamgateway.com/

but thanks for the heads up, I mention this to the gas guy when he turns up

TT

Yes - running on gas will have no impact on your points - you have the wrong condenser (may be the right one but is not strong enough) and that is why you are burning points (or cheapie points without the proper metal).

But I agree with your logic - change to electronic ignition and all your worries will go away - I have done a couple of my cars over the years and has always been money well spent.

Garry

Unfiortunately people have an over simplistic view of the old points ignition.

There is quite a variety of things that can effect what is happening with points.

Because it is a transformer system, what happens at the spark plugs can be refleced back thru the coil into the points.

Our points system of ignition works on the principle of back EMF and a colapsing field causing a spark......and a spark occurs both at the spark plugs and at the points.....we attempt to surpress this spark at the points with a capacitor (condensor) but it is only partly sucessfull at best.

The capacitor is selected bassed on what is known at the time the vehicle was built.
Variations in spark plug, spark gap, compression, dwell, ignition timing and several other things can send this all to pot.

Back in the day when I was running Mazdas, I got sick and tired of cleaning and replacing points, we tried all sorts of things.
We concluded that because i was running more advance and some of the engines where a little tired, this may have been the problem.

Anyway, I built up a transistor assisted ignition from an electronic kit and it was great, I ran the same ignition in 3 cars. The only reason I had to touch the points after that was because the heel block would wear on the dissy lobes and require adjustment.

This particular ignition also gave some extra advance at high RPM, which realy was an improvement.

If you are running gas, and it is running well you will be running masses of extra advance.
If you are running dual fuel, the single best thing you can do is get hold of a dual curve ignition.

Back in the day I had a bit to do with LPG vehicles, a mate ran a couple in competition & I drove cabs for a while.

Let me tell you if you are running dual fuel and you do not have an ignition system that does not adjust the ignition advance between petrol and gass it will be running like a dog on one or the other if not both.

Cant help you with what is available now..sorry.

cheers

sorry double negatives in the last post.

dual curve ignition for dual fuel is the go.

cheers

Just to give you a bit of a heads up on my 4x4

As to gas I'm running Impco I know its old but one can only afford so much, I replace mine with new parts last year, I have replaced the mixer and the converter, all toll cost me around about $600
because in the old gas system the diaphragm blew.

I've read online that Dual Curve products are obsolete now ? don't know how true that is

Thou I wouldn't mine replacing the electric side of things now with a new distributor, cap and leads and some new NGK plugs, electronic ignition , because their about the only thing I haven't replaced.

I don't want to part with this old girl

Dual curve ignitions are obsolete on modern vehicles because they have electronic engine management and even though the fuel injection part won't be working while on gas.

The ECU still controls the ignition timing and keeps it as far advanced as it can be without knocking.
That is if the ECU has not been reprogrammed to boot.

BUT..on older vehicles with points ignition, aftermarket dual curve ignitions are most certainly the go.

cheers

Bantam

what are dual curve ignitions ? would they replace the electronic ignition I was thinking of buying.

And were can I find these.

cheers

A dual curve ignition is an electronic ignition that changes the advance curve when you change between petrol and LPG.

Not sure where you would buy these days...an LPG install would be the first to ask.

cheers

thanks for the info Bantam

From what I see online these dual curve systems are worth a arm and a leg and hard to find.

I will ask around but I don't like my luck in finding any one down here in this small town i'm a few hundred k's away from the city.

cheers

I've just done some checking....seems "Dual Curve Ignitions" with the registered trade marks and so forth are no longer made and yes obsolete.

But it might be worth looking arround at either second hand units or an alternative product.

cheers

Possibly it is an electronic ignition coil and not one for a ballast resistor and there fore draws too many amps for the points to handle as already indicated.
Because TT is not sure of the coil type it would seem quite likely it is the wrong coil.

Some Toyota electronic distributors might be a good way to convert to electronic ignition. All genuine bits then. Wreckers might sell them cheap now as demand is less.

I've been told it comes down to tuning, because it was tuned for Fuel running a 350 holly and it wasn't tuned for Gas at the time. it ran well for about 6 weeks before it started to cough and wouldn't run right under load had to crawl home at 60k any higher and it would start to cough or miss fire that's what it felt like

Every time I have it tuned, it's either new points, plugs and its tuned for gas not fuel because I run on gas 80% of the time, thou I do run it on fuel from time to time, hence the reason why I want to fit a electronic ignition so I don't have to buy points when I have it tuned every so often.

I had the cam replaced because the front gears had a lot of play and the cam had a lot of worn marks on it, once it was tuned and got it stated the timing would jump again, so new gears and cam was fitted.
you can view the cam shots on my blog under the 4x4 gallery
http://tommytomato.rockinghamgateway.com/?page_id=1108

As to the coil its been there since the day I bought the 4x4, the ballast resistor is new and the markings say its 1.26, I tested the coil yesterday while in the 4x4 with out any wires on it and it read 1.5 thou it was jumping in its reading on the multimeter, hence why I'll re test today, and as for the dissy it looks like a new condenser was fitted as well

I went to covs yesterday and they told me as long as my coil read 1.5 ohms a Ignitor I would be OK for my FJ62