real57vetteguy

I have a 65 442 in pretty good condition, someone put a 64 330 in the car, I am working on a 425 for it but in the mean time I have been driving it. It has been breaking down (missing) a little bit so I decided to get the petronix ignotor and the flame thrower coil seeing that I can re use it on the 425. I installed it tonight, (keep in mind that the car drove and cranked excellent besides the slight miss it developed) I did not remove the distributor. upon removing the old points I noticed that they were in very poor condition. After installing the pertronix set up the car fired instantly and ran great. I pulled into a store, cut the car off, when i went to crank it back it turned over very slowly like the timing was too high, but it did crank, and again ran great! I took it home shut it off and cranked it back up and again turned over like the timing was high but fired up and ran great. It has a one week old battery that is showing 13.4 so its not a battery issue, I played with the distributor, and if i move it more than and inch or so either way the motor dies, any where I put the distributor it still turns over slowely, the starter is new also. ??????

oldcutlass

Did you reset your timing after the install, because basically you've changed your dwell by installing the new setup, therefore changing your timing. Also did you remove the resistor wire, because you need a solid 12v at the coil.

stevengerard

My car does the same exact thing after I added Petronix too. most of the time its a bear to start, sometimes its like the distributor or somethign is in the exact right place and it starts right up

oldcutlass

If its really hard to start there are two things possibly wrong, 1 the pickup was installed wrong or the timing is way to advanced!

real57vetteguy

I did not reset the timing with a light yesterday but I will today, I did however move the dist all over the range and got no progress. As far as removing the resistor wire? I am very lacking in wiring knowledge. I have been told to "bypass the ignition wire" In either case I need a little help or more involved explanation seeing that I have no clue what I am being told!

real57vetteguy

Mine is doing exactly the same!

oldcutlass

Remove the resistor wire, or bypass it. The resistor wire is 1 of two wires @ the coil, mine is tan, the other is yellow. Run a new wire to your coil from a hot at your fuse box that supplies power when the key is on!

Then reset your timing!

real57vetteguy

Ok the resistor wire has been removed, we ran a new wire with 12V to the coil and it fired right up and ran good, as soon as the car had about 15 minutes of run time we shut it off and tried to restart it, same thing, it turns over as if the timing is out or the starter is dragging, this never happened with the points, now I moved the dist in quarter inch increments as far both ways as possible and it did not make a difference in the "dragging" When I crank the cold it starts up perfectly, even somewhat warm it starts right up, but after about 15+ minutes of driving it just barely turns over?????????????

oldcutlass

What is your timing set to??

pcard

Is there any update on this issue; seems like a few people have the same problem?

real57vetteguy

we worked on mine for months to no avail, I finally replaced the 330 with a 455

oldcutlass

That's one way to fix er up!

I would like to know if they got their problems rectified also.

W30post

Is it possible, I mean remotely possible that with the new ignition setup you actually have a higher amount of heat in the exhaust manifold. This in turn could be causing starter heat soak worse than before?

My brother installed a brand new starter on his Pontiac motor to turn around and take it back off because it would not start the car when he shut it off after a drive. If you waited long enough, it would start after cool-down.

oldcutlass

Nope!

rcorrigan5

I installed the Pertronix ignition in both my '68 4-4-2 automatic and my '71 Corvette base engine automatic, in both cases keeping the stock coil. I haven't had any problems with either of them. Everything else under the hoods of these two cars is all stock as well.

Randy C.

brown7373

I have used Pertronix for 20 years, on multiple old cars and never have had an issue. That was a 69 Grand Prix, a 70 Bonneville, a 69 Corvette and a 72 Chevy Pickup. When I bought my 72 Cutlass, it already had a Pertronix that operated perfectly also. I can't speak for the Cutlass install, but on all the others, the directions say to remove the distributor and check for the amount of clearance on the lower shaft gear. As rpms increase, the shaft rises up in the distributor. If it rises too much, the distance the impulse has to travel to the pickup is too great and it won't fire, or it will miss.

Are the newer Pertronix different than the ones I installed? My directions said nothing about running 12 volts direct. Just connect the red wire to positive and black to negative on the coil, correctly shim the lower gear if out of specs, shim the magnetic ring to within specs and drive it away.

If your clearances on the lower gear or the mag ring aren't within specs, could heat soak be cauing the problem?

W30post

The directions for the clearance are for CHevy's. On Olds the gear pulls the internal shaft lower into the body so you don't need to check that if I remember reading that correctly.

oldcutlass

That is correct as the shaft turns in the opposite direction of a Chevy and pulls it down. They need a full 12v to operate, so you need to bypass the resistor wire or ballast resistor.

gearheads78

I think this might be the key to the problems some of you are having. When I first put mine together there was a ton of up and down play. Once I tightened it all up it never missed a lick. I also did not rewire with 12 volts.

eshawl

By any chance do you have any documentation on how to do that? (Bypassing the resistor wire or ballast resistor)

Thx

oldcutlass

You can replace the existing resistance wire that runs from the bulkhead connector at the firewall to the ignition coil+ terminal with a 12ga wire. Or you can run a wire from the fuse block IGN terminal to the ignition coil+ terminal, and cap and stow the old resistance wire in the harness.

eshawl

Perfect, thx!