Greetings to all: One of several items on the winter to do list is installation of a Petronix ignition system and would like to share the results of my crude experiment. I did a little comparison of the stock system on my '64 F100 versus the Pertronix Ignitor 2 and the Flame Thrower 40,000 V coil. I will try to explain why I chose those components. The Ignitor 2 is capable of handling more current than the Ignitor 1 and will shut the system down if the ignition key is accidentally left in the on position with the engine not running. That feature saved the day several time during this test. I actually put an ammeter in the primary circuit to prove this. The Flame Thrower 40KV coil is one of the "less powerful" coils with 1.5 ohms primary resistance which will not load the Ignitor 2 anywhere near it's potential. Thus allowing it to hopefully run on the cool side. Probably most important, this coil can be used with out the ballast resistor/wire. The stock factory coil feed wire coming from the "C" terminal of the ignition switch, through the resistance wire now controls a relay which switches a 12V source to the new coil. The voltage drop with the resistance wire still in the circuit feeding this relay is only a meager 250mv. so no problem there.  Wanting desperately to be able to check and adjust the 2 advance mechanisms I went on the hunt for a distributor tester and luckily found one not working in my community cheap. Long story short: Fixed it - works excellent. First test is with points/condenser dizzy in the machine, stock coil fed from a 12V source and ballast resistor duplicating the system in my '64 F100. Put a spark plug wire in the coil tower with a plug gaped to .055" at the other end. The negative/ground to the plug is through a jumper wire the end of which I held with a plastic spark plug wire tool. With the machine set to about 1000 dist. RPM's a nice blue series of sparks appear at the plug gap. Slowly moving the grounding wire away from the spark plug drew an arc which started to misfire at about 3/8" after which the voltage was insufficient to sustain the .055" gap and the 3/8" to the ground wire. Still, not bad for a stock system, I thought. Next test is with the Ignitor 2 in the dizzy and the Flame Thrower coil WITH BALLAST resistor. I found not much difference with this arrangement under the above conditions. Next test, the resistor was removed allowing the coil to breathe full 12.5V and what an extreme difference removing the resistor made. Instead of the arc quitting at 3/8" distance it now required moving the ground wire over an inch where the arc finally flamed out. The sound of this was very much louder and bright crispy blue and the garage soon began to smell of ozone. Like, Frandenstein's lab.. Looking at graphs and scopes depicting rapid rise time to saturation and all that is proof of the improvement but actually being able to see, hear and smell (but not feel) the difference was rather eye opening. Anyone contemplating the Pertronix up-grade and choosing a coil that is designed to be used with out the resistor and installing it as such will produce the best results. In my location I can't drive the truck (damn road salt) but I did time the dizzy to the engine and found I needed to lean the idle mixture screws slightly more than 1/4 turn. I'd like to give some credit for this to more complete combustion from a much hotter spark with plugs in the engine now at .044."  Now must wait for spring to attach the air/fuel meter and dial in the carb.. I'm not too good at explaining things in text so I hope this was interesting and not too confusing. thanks, JEFF.....................


64F100 57FAIRLANE500