<VV> "Points" to ponder - HEI

[Tony Underwood]

At 06:20 hours 10/28/2005, UltraMonzaWest at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 10/28/2005 5:50:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time, pp2 at 6007.us
>writes:
>
> > The Delcotronic was in production until 1966 when it was replaced briefly
> > by a Capacitive Discharge unit which led the way to the first 
> HEIs in 1971.
> > These early units had a much smaller diameter (drat, it is hard to tell
> > this story without illustrations) than the 1973 HEIs which followed as it
> > was found that 60,000 volts would arc over considerable distanced. These
> > lasted until 1986 when the first Distributorless Ignition Systems (DIS)
> > were introduced though the full transition took several years.
> >
>******************************************************************************
>********
>
>Even until 1980 you kept an extra Rotor in the tool bag......they'd  arc thru
>the center to the shaft.




Would you believe that this was also a problem with Yugo rotor 
buttons...?   Dinky engine, but no shortage of spark.    Maybe to get 
the car to start on those damp dewey cold Serbian winter mornings...?


The interesting part of the thread regarding electronic ignition, 
whichever the vintage/source, tends to remind me that none of the 
Vairs here have anything except points.   The Spyder with the tweaked 
up RL engine making bunches of boost also had stock points ignition 
(with Corvette coil) and not once did it ever misfire due to 
inadequate spark no matter how hard it got pressed or how much boost 
it cranked, and it never failed to start immediately, hot or cold, 
regardless of outside temps and in fact was, in one instance during a 
week-long below-zero freeze, the *only* car in the fleet that *would* 
start...  whereupon I did some taxi service that morning before I 
went to work.

Makes me wonder just how "inferior" a properly functioning 
points-ignition actually was, compared to the electronic 
variant...  and yes, being an electronics tech I fully understand the 
advantages of PEI.    I just don't regard the points ignition as all 
that functionally inferior in most instances as long as it's working 
the way it was intended to work.


tony..   replaced several rotor buttons on the Serbian Fiat clones