Pertronix 2 with matching Coil in 3 Cars. Eliminates the Ballast Resistor. One less Item to fail. 10 Years. Never had a problem.

  

Yes, we are between a rock and a hard space for condensers. Off shore crap bad right out of the box, little NOS and sometimes those aren't great due to shelf life. I've converted to Pertronix on two of my three engines..

Yeah, for whatever reason it is apparently pretty tough to make a high voltage ignition condenser in a small package, at least to meet a certain price point. What is really aggravating, these parts have been widely known to be defective for several years now, yet the "usual suspects" (whether the local parts house or even the specialty suppliers) still keep these POS critical ignition parts in their inventory.

CDE 715P or 716P 0.22 @400 or 600 volts should last pretty much forever near as I can tell. Coupled with quality NOS contact points and a serviceable distributor a tune-up job should remain satisfactory for a long time. The NOS condensers are far better than the el-cheapos but are starting to show their age. If there are U.S.A. made condensers of recent manufacture these would probably be OK, but I would not run any points ignition with first testing them at their rated voltage, leakage, series resistance, and insulation test, and at normal operating temperature. A "capacitor checker" in a DVM or DMM cannot do this.

It's father's day here today. I hadn't run the car for a couple of months through our winter. There was a car show on that I was going to take my car to. I started it this morning and it ran for about 10 or 20 seconds then stared running rough finally stalling. It had an extremely weak spark. Swapped coil first, but still wouldn't run. put the old condenser in which failed on me when it got hot previously. The car fired up straight away and ran perfectly.
That piece of crap condenser was not in for six months and would not have even done 500 miles. I got it from a Tbird parts supplier as part of a tune up kit. I did think it looked a bit cheap and junky when I first put it in. I looked at the points that came with it and it looks like a plastic rubbing block as well.
That took the shine of the day for me. Was really looking forward to getting out with the car.

Ignition condensers are made with foil/paper construction as far as I know. Electrolytic capacitors are a bit different, containing a liquid paste. They are used where a high capacitance and high voltage in a small space is required. They also have a polarity.

My dual points kit requires the condenser be installed on the outside of the distributor (mounted on the vacuum diaphragm) so replacement couldn’t be simpler. Just curious though, how/if that might extend it’s life (assuming temp. inside the distributor is higher, and the original style condenser’s electrolytic construction is susceptible to overheating damage)? I’m guessing the dist. cap must hold in the heat conducted up through the aluminum distributor body, which is in direct contact with the engine block. Although, if that WAS the case, likely the manufacturers would have designed the original ignition system differently, unless exposure to oil/dirt/oxygen/etc. was thought to be worse (?).

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

You can get decent parts, condensers included at your NAPA store, there are others also but ... few if any condensers are made in America anymore but that could change .... we hope.
I also had a new one fail on a trip to New York from Minnesota in our '54 Ford all original car.   I like you put my old spare in at a truck stop, it's still there and working well, might be an old original from those years....
Always carry a spare.   Another good idea is to replace the holding screw with an Allen head screw, # 8 is what most are, then you can control the screw far easier while replacing the condenser, far less chance of dropping or losing.   I made an Allen wrench attached to a screwdriver handle, this works super well.
warren

Interesting. I've read drag racers had all kinds of tricks and modifications (doubling up the spring say,) to prevent point bounce at very high RPM. The rubbing block lasted few miles this way, but it did work.

Don’t know about the ‘57+/centrifical parts, but with Loadomatic points, often no amount of adjustment will bring the spring tension into the spec. range.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

That famous auction site usually has a good supply up for bid or BIN. Figure about $10 per, delivered to your door, is about par for the course. I see a good supply available under the old part number as well. Used from 1945 to 1974, so even today they are not rare or expensive. No reason whatsoever to use crappy ignition parts!

"Older part#: FAA-12171-A (replaced 7RA-12171) .. Point Set-Heavy Duty / 1948/52 337 / 1948/53 239 / 1948/64 I-6's ... In 1969, Ford replaced FAA-12171-A with C9AZ-12171-B (Motorcraft DP-3) which has many more applications too numerous to list."

Also consider the rotor, the earlier black rotors were pre-emission era. The later blue ones will work, but have imo an excessive gap, and they don't tend to last quite as long.