Electronic IG: yes or no

It's a ford. It says right on the valve cover .020 for points gap. We have never checked the timing before. Coil is about 7 volts when warmed up.

74SkiNautique wrote: Can anyone check the ohms are there ballast resistors when hot?? I feel like 5 ohms is too much and might explain why boat runs like crap after it gets hot

The parts that Gun Driver listed and I added to earlier are parts are for a Prestolite distributor and I noticed that you have a Mallory while rereading this whole thread. Those parts won't work.

Since it's a 74 you won't have a PCM engine eitherit could be a Waukesha which became PCM.but they had prestolite distributors Figure out what you have as a starting point. You seem to have solved it back in 2012 but you were screwing with points every 25 hours or so

I measured a ballast resistor on a PCM 351 and it was 1.2 ohms cold (edited out some confusing numbers)

Now as far as numbers go, the resistor got up to about 155-160 degrees on the ceramic housing, what the wire coil inside embedded in epoxy got to .....who knows.

This particular boat runs just fine with 7 volts at the coil negative terminal at 1000 rpm, go to 2000 rpm and there is 8.5 volts. 3000 rpm 9.4 volts.

The ignition coil never went over 145 in about an hour of running at various speeds In a handful of boats that I take care of they have coil temps of 140 to maybe 175 under various conditions with no running issues

I also noticed you asked this same electronic ignition question back in 2012, 4 years is long enough to make up your mind, I would think.

If you're staying with points, figure out what you have for a distributor and get stock replacement parts and do a complete tuneup.

Just to steer you to look at other things, have you looked to see if your antisiphon valve is clear. Plenty of people have had a boat that runs for a short time till the fuel flow gets to restricted, you let it sit and some of the crap falls off then you can start it again and repeat the cycle.

I don't recall seeing anywhere that you mentioned whether you had spark or not when it died the second time.

Running in the driveway with no load on the engine isn't gonna tell you much either, you may think everything's great till you hit the water

I previously Said I was getting 7 volts at the coil when hot, and 5 ohms on the resistor. I think my meter was acting up because today I got a crazy volt reading and unplugged my leads a few times and then it started reading a normal reading. Weird.

And the antisiphon valve. I'm not familiar with that. Is that the fuel tank vent?

Chris

Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you some Mallory points and condensers if you want them.

Won't cost you anything

Sounds to me like your resistor is OK and coil voltage is OK too, and the point cleaning seems to have cured your issue at least for now

Chris
2 sets of points and 2 condensers and 2 mounting plates are on the way.

Genuine Mallory parts. Lightly used but working good when removed for electronic conversions.

Coming USPS