Pertronix Ignitor III. Eliminates points, gives you multi spark (MSD) performance, and a rev limiter. Plus all of it fits inside your stock points distributor, no ugly external box. Installs in 30min and you'll never have to mess with it again.
I hate points. PITA. Very quaint.. I have pertronix runningin all three of my cars and maybe 6 or seven dual engine boats (thats 12 or 14 boat engines) and I have never had a Pertronics fail in 20 years or even heard of one failing! Very consistant and rules out ignition when things hiccup ang one is trying to diagnose a problem. I do keep my old points in the trunk though.. they've been there so long...decades... so there I am in the dessert trying to remember how they go in with a big Nuke mushroom cloud way in the distance...lol
I'm still running my points. Been in the motor now, lets see, three years now, never had a problem or had to adjust them since I put them in. Running a big Accel Super coil, too. I might need to look at them before spring, but right now, she's still starting and running fine.... I usually just eyeball them. As the older guys would say, " about the thickness of a well worn dime".
The only real drawback to points is when the cam on the distributor gets worn down. that will throw off the dwell. It takes a lot of miles for this to happen, though. Even though I run a DuraSpark II system, I would have been fine with points if I could've found a points distributor when my original one puked!
The biggest drawback to a points ignition system . . . is time! these distributors are 30 - 40 years old. The bushings are worn, the breaker plate pivots are worn and the vacuum advance units are worn. the distributors need to be rebuilt to have any accuracy at all - and putting a Pertronics pickup in them doesn't solve the wear. Back before after-market distributors I used to ream the housings and install needle roller bearings in them and center the breaker plate pivot so it actually rotated around the shaft (like the DS II breaker plates do). I even built more than a few dwell extenders to make them capable of running well above 6500 rpm. That was back when we had to make HP because we couldn't buy it.
Ditto. New reman points distributor + Pertronix (or the electronic drop in of choice) and you've got a solid reliable system that never will need adjusting
You haven't driven it far enough. And until you set the points with a dwell meter, you don't know what you're leaving on the table.
I'm a believer of--- if it works, don't fix it. I'll take a carb over efi, I'll take a mechanical fuel pump over electric, heck give me manual crank windows over a button. ...but points just don't have any advantage in my eye, they work; although, electronic ignition works much better. Now using points on my lawn tractor, dirt bike, etc is fine. Single Cylinder Engines dont wear them out as fast due to less contacting, and it saves on space on smaller machines. To answer the question though, leaving them wont hurt, and they're not a big burden to adjust in my opinion. My 2 cents
