Change points to electic. Yes or No

Hollywood wrote: this is like saying: "hey my friend's ski nautique broke down once, you should buy a mastercraft they are better..."

Well said, HW. Made me laugh.

81nautique wrote: Gary S wrote: 8122pbrainard wrote: chuckactor wrote: There is a reason you can't buy an internal combustion engine with points anymore. . Very good to know but, what is the reason????? Manufacturer's look bad when it takes 2 weeks to get their points adjusted In small engines I'm sure the reason is cost and packaging Most likely reliability and longer service interval, lower maintenance costs.   My shop vehicle just turned 160,000 miles yesterday and has never had a tune up, original wires , cap, plugs everything. A points system just can't get that done, I remember maintaining the family cars growing up, we had 4 cars in the family and I was always tuning one of them up.

JMO, but manufacturing cost is usually the reason for widespread industry changes like this. I imagine it is more expensive to pay someone to set points than just plug in a module.

81nautique wrote: Most likely reliability and longer service interval, lower maintenance costs.   My shop vehicle just turned 160,000 miles yesterday and has never had a tune up, original wires , cap, plugs everything. A points system just can't get that done, I remember maintaining the family cars growing up, we had 4 cars in the family and I was always tuning one of them up.

I agree Alan,my 01 Jeep doesn't even have wires,cap or rotor but I meant small engines. For example my 24 year old Stihl chainsaw lost spark and was a bad coil assembly. Nothing there to replace but it. At manufacture time no eccentric cam needed to be ground on the crank or flywheel no extra covers,point plates or holes to mount them or condensers, a nice compact item most likely made the engine smaller too. So after replacing the coil myself at 1/3 the original cost of the saw,I was back in business.

TRBenj wrote: Of course I think that owning a $20 dwell meter and knowing how to use it goes hand in hand with owning an old boat... So I may be out to lunch on this topic.

Tim,
You're not out to lunch as I have agreed with you many times.

8122pbrainard wrote: point set challenged?   it's a common reason for the EI conversion. .

Next time we meet up, we'll get together for lunch!

Thanks everyone. I have actually been sneaking around the site for around a month soaking up all the knowledge I could from the members and posts before I purchased this boat. After reading everyone's post I feel its a 50/50 split. This boat fires right up, idles like a champ and runs super!. So I think I'm just going to order me a spare set of high quality points and condenser to keep on the boat and just enjoy it till I start having an issue. My biggest concern was just reliability on the water and like most say if it ain't broke don't fix it. To be honest sounds like the full conversion ( distributor, coil ,ballast, ect) is really the proper way to get good reliability and at this point my wallet is very thin. Think I am going to put that money toward reconditioning my teak platform and some good old fashioned routine maintenance.

8122pbrainard wrote: chuckactor wrote: There is a reason you can't buy an internal combustion engine with points anymore. . Very good to know but, what is the reason?????

Manufacturer's look bad when it takes 2 weeks to get their points adjusted In small engines I'm sure the reason is cost and packaging

this is like saying: "hey my friend's ski nautique broke down once, you should buy a mastercraft they are better..."

chuckactor wrote: There is a reason you can't buy an internal combustion engine with points anymore. .

Very good to know but, what is the reason?????

We have seen a rash of poorly performing/unreliable pertronix units in the last 10 years. The count of dead EI modules in my attic far exceeds the number of times that points have left me stranded.

You can only revert back to points if you keep the baseplate! Most people throw it out when converting. Those are hard to find.

If you can't get points to run reliably then there is something wrong with the distributor, your adjustment, or possibly cheap/faulty parts. I've heard of low quality condensers as of late and got my first one this fall. Still a much cheaper replacement than going EI.

Totally agree that old worn out distributors likely cause more issues than the points themselves. Converting a tired dizzy to EI won't solve the issue entirely (or at all). I have some nice electronic DUI's in a few boats and don't have an issue with electronic ignition on the whole, but I do not care for the retrofit EI kits. You get all of the bad parts of EI and none of the good. I keep points in all of my stock/near stock boats. I'd be more inclined to replace the dizzy with new or have the old one rebuilt than simply converting the pickup. JMHO.

Also keep in mind the nice thing with a Pertronix unit is that you can always go back to points - you simply pull out your points and put in the Pertronix or vice-versa. I have to agree with Pete - keep it original, so I really hate doing anything I can't reverse.

I do not like Pertronix as a company. Had one of their units fail on me in the last week of warranty. Called for a warranty claim and they said their RMA system was down, call in a few days and they would honor it as a failure within warranty period. Assured me they made a note of it and would be no problem. Of course when I called back they refused to offer any sort of warranty coverage. Never again will I deal with Pertronix, as I doubt they'll want to make this right after so many years. Still have that worthless failed $100+ Ignitor II sitting in a drawer.

I switched that distributor over to an Accel points conversion and it has performed fine for many years. For my boat I run a Mallory unilite marine distributor and am pleased with the quality and performance.

Points are fine, but my experience is engines with electronic ignition start easier and idle smoother. Many times the "problem" with points is not really the points at all but rather a 20-40 year old worn out distributor. The bushings wear and the shaft wobbles, causing inconsistent timing and points gap. Electronic conversions can mask the symptoms of that but if your distributor is worn you should rebuild or replace. The actual issue with points is running full current through them as in most old basic ignition systems. If you run an ignition box that just uses the points as a trigger then points work well and last much longer between cleaning and adjusting.

I'd change it and look into a FI system too.

Conversions. No more corrosion issues or adjusting the gap. WHAT WORKS FOR ME MAY NOT BE THE BEST FOR SOMEONE ELSE.
Nice boat Sampson and welcome to CCFAN.

I have upgraded all of mine and it was well worth it.

I would leave it as well. I too, remember and have used the old "matchbook" method! I remember years ago, stopping and helping a few "surfer dudes" stuck on the side of the road with a VW bug. Turns out the drivers Dad, had just tuned her up, and failed to tighten the points down, A matchbook (They had one?) and a screwdriver, with instructional lessons at the motor, got them up and running. "Farout". "Cool" and "Hang loose" was my reward.