Strange how many failures I have read about over the years yet so many people have run them for years without a problem. I have had one in my 66 Mustang for 10 years without a problem. The one in the Y is the first I have used with a Flamethrower coil, I'm using 12-14V straight to the Ignitor and coil, no resistor.

Too all:

it definitely looks like I have an issue with the Petronix! Miss got excessively worse until my 56 just sputters after running for about 10 minutes or so.  Car starts right up cold and after it warms up it starts to miss progressively worse until it stalls.  Other day driving back from town, miss got real bad, popped the hood and almost burnt my hand on the casing of the Flame thrower coil! Got the car home, tried a few spare, used coils and it will barely keep running now!  

I have checked all wiring and all appears ok. I have ordered a new Petronix III kit with the rev limiter and hope this works. I would love to actually go with an MSD distributor & box, but unfortunately that is out of my budget now, so lets hope this new Petronix works! I figure after 13 years of trouble free operation, my Petronix I doesn't owe me anything! 

I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning!

I think the Pertronix 3 is probably better as it has multispark throughout the entire rev range MSD ign do not . Make sure your dissy is in top condition and buy the matching coil at the same time.



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

Thanks Talkwrench,

Just purchased a Petronix III along with the matched coil. Hope to install today, I will let everyone know ho it works! (I like the fact that it has a built in rev limiter also!

I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning!

I've been running the original Pertronix on numerous engines for years. Last year I switched to a Pertronix II on my 57 312 and noticed a big difference in performance with hotter coil and wider plug gap. Last night it went out on me. Lucky I had the original in the trunk that I was able to install and get home. Again noticable difference in performance. Are there any other options that would perform better that I could go with and still use the 57 distributor?  Dave V

SE Wis

There's the Accel points eliminator kit people seem to like. The only drawback to it I can see is it has a unique rotor whereas the Pertronix uses the stock rotor.

The main downside of the typical "points replacer" unit is its location inside the rear mount Y-block distributor. Can be very hot while doctoring on the side of the road.
The next downer being the location of a spare part .....if that's the problem (trigger unit). Gotta carry a spare unit of that type - or know how to refit the points.

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

In addition, in order to use some of the points replacers to their full potential, a different coil is required.  Regarding swapping points back in:

In the case of Pertronix, either of the Flamethrower coils should get you home.  You should have absolutely no problems with a 3 ohm Flamethrower unit.  However, the flamethrower II and III coils are a no go for points.  The flamethrower II will get you about 10 miles before the points are toast, maybe a little farther if you have real good quality points.  (Guess how I know that one).  The Flamethrower III has even less resistance, so I doubt you'd get much farther than your driveway.

Remember to take that into account if you carry points around as backup.  You may want to add a points coil to that stash of backup parts (or several more sets of points).



Not unless you are willing to spend a lot more money.  You can convert your stock distributor to a Duraspark trigger.  If you search "Duraspark" you should find all sorts of threads about that.  Once that is done, you can use just about any ignition box on the market.  And, many ignition boxes can use points as the trigger, so you don't necessarily have to convert the distributor, and that makes it real easy to convert back to points, if needed.



Lawrenceville, GA

Well installed the Petronix III yesterday and so far all is well! After adjusting the timing to a full 34 deg. (NO vacuum adv) engine runs smooth  (other than the lumpy cam! lol) and pulls hard through all gears. I left the rev limiter set at the factory setting (5500 rpm) and it worked well! Punched the throttle on a rolling start and tires went up in smoke! I hit the rev limiter and my tac dropped like a stone. shifted to second and lit the tires up again!  Lets hope all stays this way!!! 

I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning!

I have been running the original PenTronix with their coil on my '57 for many years with no problems. I was not aware that the PenTronix III had a rev limiter. How do you set it? I was planning on adding an MSD box with the rev limiter to get a rev limiter. This may be a simpler route to go. Am I on the right track? And how do you set it?