Jim,
I found no good technical information on the Pertronix website except this:
Quote:
What will happen if I leave the ignition switch on when the engine is not
running?
Leaving the ignition switch on when the engine is not running, can cause
permanent
damage to the ignition system, and related components. This does not apply to
the
accessory position of the ignition switch.
End Quote.
Thanks for coming out, guys. I'm amazed that they would market a system that can
potentially nuke itself, just because the ignition is left on. I once built a
crank-triggered ignition that suffered the exact same problem, but it was a
one-off, designed specifically for a racing application, and not for everyday
use
by people not totally familiar with everything in the car.
As Tom mentioned, work is in progress on an in-depth evaluation of the Tiger
tach,
and a fix for its electrical foibles. However, I can't see why the setup you
have
wouldn't work if all the components were each working properly. Here's a list of
things I'd check if I was there, but no doubt you've been there and done that:
1. Power for both the Pertronix system and the coil comes from the white wire
running through the tach loop ONLY. There is nothing else hooked up to the loop
(i.e. between it and the coil/Pertronix). The ballast resistor is still in place
and wired according to the wiring diagram.
2. The coil is new or KNOWN good. How do you know? You get a new one.
3. The coil is wired with the correct polarity on the primary side: 12V (white
wire from the tach loop) to the (+) and the black wire from the ignitor to the
(-).
4. The tach is grounded properly via the daisy chain wires to the underdash
support, and it gets 12V (not 10) when the ignition is turned on.
5. The engine is grounded to the chassis through a 4-gauge or better cable with
clean connections.
6. I haven't used a Pertronix, and I forget exactly how the Ford distributor
goes
together (I only rebuilt the one, and that was last year), but how is the
breaker
plate grounded? If you have a breaker plate (hooked up to the vacuum advance
system) with a nice film of grease between everything, and no separate ground
wire
from the plate to the distributor body, then there's no way for the Pertronix to
get a good ground, and the amplifier won't work properly. Same thing could
happen
if you greased the distibutor mounting (where it slides into the block) - if the
distributor wasn't clamped down properly (or if you had a killer paint job on
the
clamp) then the whole distributor wouldn't be grounded, and all kinds of nasty
side effects could happen.
I don't know what else to suggest at this point. I think it's unlikely that
Mo-Ma
and Pertronix would miss some part of their testing on your tach, but I don't
think that adding the diodes would help you any, since there's only an inductive
connection between the tach and the ignition.
If you want to retain the stock look, then you shouldn't use one of the
high-energy ignition systems, since they require the larger cap and rotor to
prevent arcing. You could build a hybrid system using the reluctor-based
distributor, running both sensor wires out inside one piece of black insulation
(for the stock look...) and then have an external amplifier (you could use a GM
HEI amplifier module, they're cheap and they work) to drive the stock coil,
keeping the ballast resistor etc. The GM HEI amplifier is pretty much exactly a
points-replacement device, so it would provide no additional energy to the
system
but there are no more points to adjust. I don't have any experience with the
Ford
Duraspark modules, except the litigation reports that I've read recently, so I
wouldn't go with them as a first choice.
Good luck, and keep us posted on your results. If worse comes to worst, drive
the
whole thing up here - we're having really nice weather right now.
Theo
James Pickard wrote:
> <Help!>
> Jim Pickard
> B9473298
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