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MG MGB Technical - New Pertroix Ignitor

I recently purchased this ignitor from Victoria British and will be installing it soon. The instructions seem clear. Since points seem to get adjusted in placement to account for dwell and I saw no mention of this in the instructions, can I assume that no adjustments are generally required? What about timing adjustments? If anybody has this, has your experiance been good? I'm hoping to increase horse power just a bit. Any hope? Thanks. I'll let you know how it works out. Bob
Bob Ekstrand

No adjustments are necessary for the dwell on the Ignitor. You should recheck the timing anyway after removing the distributor, but it should be relatively close to where you had it previously.

Personally, I love the ignitor and have it on two cars. I like not dealing with points. It won't really affect your horsepower per se, but what it will do is help compensate for a worn and wobbly distributor shaft and mal-adjusted points. So you may feel a positive effect, but the unit itself doesn't really increase horsepower.

One thing: If you hook this thing up backwards, the magic smoke gets let out instantly. (Only had to learn that lesson once)
Mark J Michalak

Dwell is handled automatically by the pertronix and isn't really adjustable I believe. Timing is adjusted the same way as with normal points by rotating the distributor body and using a timing light on the marks on the crank pulley.

I fitted one to my B (I also have a Lucas sports coil fitted) and although it hasn't been on the road yet so I can't comment on driveability I did find that it made the timing a hell of a lot more stable. With points the timing marks would jitter about a lot more when using the timing light. With the Pertronix the marks remained steady.

I don't think you'd get any horsepower increase using it though? Well, not enough to be noticiable I think.

Simon
Simon Jansen

Thanks for the info on Pertronix. I do have a Lucas 40000 sports coil which I hope helps. Take care Bob
Bob

I also have ran the pertronix with a sports coil, but on a midget. Cant say it did anything for horse power but it did steady my idle and it seemed much more responsive. I am a big fan of the pertronix and will add one to my B soon.
Bryan

I am also a fan of the Pertronix. One thing to check when installing, however, is the ground braid in the distributor. The Pertronix DEPENDS on this for its ground (they really should have used a third wire) and, like most electronics, has no sense of humor about iffy grounding. Make sure the braid is there and functional, or the ground will be coming by way of the advance springs and not reliable enough. It doesn't add horsepower to your engine, but it can allow you to actually round up some of the horses that have been straying a bit.

Pertronix also has an Ignitor II series that increases the dwell with rpm for better high-rpm spark, but that is more of a feature for a V8 than for an I4 with twice as much time between sparks at a given rpm.
David "sparky" Lieb
David Lieb

411 for Bob- With that 40k Sport Coil, you can open the spark plug gap up a few thou for a more motivated burn. Cheers, Vem
vem myers

You can run the plugs @.035...check your timing as it will be advanced
R Dougherty

Personally, I stick to .032" gap as .035 stresses the system and can lead to faster deterioration of your cap, rotor, and wires.

You may want to add a bit of silicon sealer to the inside of the magnetic trigger wheel when you install it too. Sometimes they fit a hair loose and can rotate a few degrees.
Jeff Schlemmer

All,

my C had an ignitor as well, I then wrote it off, not the engine, this is now in a different bodyshell. Dizzy taken out and put back. Didn't want to fire up (two years after the event).

Standard dizzy in, whoom.

Any ideas what could have happened to the Ignitor. Any tests I could do to check if the thing failed or I installed it wrongly?

My Ignitor dizzy is a 45D6 built by Aldon equiped with C race spec 3 mapping, flame thrower coil. Huge sparks and excellent cold weather starting abilities, very powerfull engine.

Thanks,

Laurens.
Laurens CGT

It could have been as simple as the timing being off, or the ignition key being on for a long time diagnosing the problem.
Jeff Schlemmer

This thread was discussed between 03/03/2008 and 18/03/2008

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