Pertronix II questions

[73vertproject]

I received the Pertronix II module (not the whole dizzy) today and want to get it installed. The builder said I should also get a set of solid plug wires, so I ordered them and they are on the way. But the P II directions say, "CAUTION... DO NOT USE SOLID CORE SPARK PLUG WIRES WITH THE IGNITOR II IGNITION SYSTEM." But they don't say why?

Anyone have experience here? Should I send the solid core wires back when they get here?

Any other tips or tricks I should know about? I'll be very careful 'cause I don't want to fry my factory tach.

 

[Wolverine]

Hey...NEW TOYS!!!! I LOVE DISTRIBUTORS!!!

I received the Pertronix II module (not the whole dizzy) today and want to get it installed. The builder said I should also get a set of solid plug wires, so I ordered them and they are on the way. But the P II directions say, "CAUTION... DO NOT USE SOLID CORE SPARK PLUG WIRES WITH THE IGNITOR II IGNITION SYSTEM." But they don't say why?

Call them!!!

Phone: (909) 547-9058

They are in CA.

I do not know why your builder would recommend solid core for your application.

Anyone have experience here? Should I send the solid core wires back when they get here?

I would send them back. Any good 8mm wire will do for your application.

If you are using an Ignitor II, you are basically getting the same voltage as a factory breaker point ignition.

Any other tips or tricks I should know about? I'll be very careful 'cause I don't want to fry my factory tach.

1. I would leave my factory tach out of the loop until I had my engine running. Then, I posted diagram of how to wire in the tach, which requires you to cut into a wire under the dash, and run it through the firewall.

If you can wait a few weeks on the tach, I might have a more elegant solution.

2. I thought you were getting a whole new distributor?

3. Once you get up and running, you might want to get a spare Ignitor II. That way if you have an issue, you just swap it out.

4. Get a TIMING LIGHT if you don't have one.

5. Get a DWELL METER if you don't have one.

6. Get a VACUUM GUN/GAGE if you don't have one.

7. Get an 8" rear end if you don't have one.(I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of that one).

 

[73vertproject]

Hey...NEW TOYS!!!! I LOVE DISTRIBUTORS!!!

Yep, me too kindof. Glad to have helped make your day.

I received the Pertronix II module (not the whole dizzy) today and want to get it installed. The builder said I should also get a set of solid plug wires, so I ordered them and they are on the way. But the P II directions say, "CAUTION... DO NOT USE SOLID CORE SPARK PLUG WIRES WITH THE IGNITOR II IGNITION SYSTEM." But they don't say why?

Call them!!!

Phone: (909) 547-9058

They are in CA.

Thanks, James! I called them at 4:30PM PST and listened to 15 minutes of horrible Muzak that would make a 70's porn "music director" barf, and then left a message for them to call me back, hopefully before smoke comes out of the tach gauge.

I do not know why your builder would recommend solid core for your application.

Me, neither.

Anyone have experience here? Should I send the solid core wires back when they get here?

I would send them back. Any good 8mm wire will do for your application.

If you are using an Ignitor II, you are basically getting the same voltage as a factory breaker point ignition.

That's what I'm thinking.

Any other tips or tricks I should know about? I'll be very careful 'cause I don't want to fry my factory tach.

1. I would leave my factory tach out of the loop until I had my engine running. Then, I posted diagram of how to wire in the tach, which requires you to cut into a wire under the dash, and run it through the firewall.

If you can wait a few weeks on the tach, I might have a more elegant solution.

Good thinking.

2. I thought you were getting a whole new distributor?

Not yet. If it turns out that I have to, I'll have this module as a backup.

3. Once you get up and running, you might want to get a spare Ignitor II. That way if you have an issue, you just swap it out.

See #2

4. Get a TIMING LIGHT if you don't have one.

Got one

5. Get a DWELL METER if you don't have one.

Pitched my old one in '79. Hopefully won't need one with the electronic ig.

6. Get a VACUUM GUN/GAGE if you don't have one.

Getting one tomorrow.

7. Get an 8" rear end if you don't have one.(I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of that one).

Happy with my 9" but appreciate you're input.

 

[c9zx]

If they are truly "solid core" wires. Send them back. The pertronix wires work well, look reasonably close to stock, not terribly expensive and are compatible withe the pertronix trigger. Just one option. Chuck

 

[Utard]

Hey Doc!

I just got my Pertronix II yesterday. I went with the whole distributor, but I imagine that for wiring we are in the same boat.

I'm hoping to get mine installed tomorrow evening, so I haven't quite got there yet, but I can tell you what I have been doing.

I called Pertronix to ask them about the resistance wire issue.

He told me that the tach in our cars work by measuring current. He asked if I had ordered a Flamethrower coil, and I told him I was calling him to answer questions before I ordered anything. He told me NOT to use the Flamethrower, but to instead use the standard coil. He said that using the hotter coil would make the tach inaccurate. It would still work, just read wrong. He said it would be safe and wouldn't burn it up, but what's the point of a tach that reads wrong? With the standard lower volt coil the tach should still read right, but you can't use the + side of the coil to feed the module as it doesn't provide 12 volts. You would need to find a 12 volt circuit that is hot with the ignition on and run a wire to the red wire coming off of the Pertronix module. Run the black wire from the module to the - side of the coil, and leave the wire that is on the + side there for your tach. I don't think that it matters so much where you pull the switched 12 volts from, as long as it's switched, has full 12 volts and you can get a fuse inline.

I'm going to go a little off track right about here......

I figured I'd like to be able to put a fuse inline cause I really don't know how many amps are going to be on the circuit that I decide to use. I thought I might just come off of the ignition side of the starter solenoid, but that just like the coil didn't have full 12 volts. So I decided to find switched power in the harness under the dash. I got to thinking about what I might be doing to upgrade in the near future. I don't want to have to keep hacking away at the wiring. I'm going to take the headlights off of the light switch and run them off of the battery with relay's, so more inline fuses. Then I'm going to upgrade the stereo soon, so another fuse and relay.........

I ended up at the electronics store and found myself back at home with a couple of fuse blocks, some relays and a bunch of wire. What would be nice is to have a convenient place where I could find a source for constant power, switched power, relays and fuses. There is a piece of sheet metal just above the glove compartment that's called a relay panel. I pulled the dash pad and glove box and found the panel. The only thing on it was the seat belt buzzer and a single relay. There was plenty of room for what I wanted to accomplish so I decided that this was a perfect spot. All I have to do is pull the glove box and then the 2 screws that hold the panel in place and I can easily get to it.



I ran a 10 gauge wire from the battery through a 30 amp fuse and into the fuse block on the left. I also brought a ground directly from the negative to ensure a good grounding location. I came out of the constant voltage fuse block and into a relay. Next I pulled a 12v from the ignition circuit and brought it up to switch the relay, and fed power to the second fuse block. Now I have 5 constant power circuits and 6 switched power circuits available using voltage straight from the battery and not adding any additional load to any of the current circuits. Plus I can put a fuse on any of the circuits individually. I made about a foot long service loop in the loom that I made up, so I can pull it out to test it or add circuits.



Then on the bottom side of the panel I added 4 relays. I'm going to use 2 of them for the headlights, 1 for the stereo and then 1 that's a spare if I find a need for it later. It all tucks up completely out of sight and is pretty clean. There's plenty of room unlike under the dash, and I shouldn't ever have to stand on my head and hack into the main harness again to find a power feed.

I should have the distributor installed tomorrow afternoon. I'll let you know if everything is working, including the tach tomorrow or Sunday.

 

[73vertproject]

Ordered a new stock dizzy and Pertronix II module, and have both in hand. Now, I'll disconnect the Tach to ensure I don't fry it before I figure out how to wire it correctly. Then drop in the new dizzy and install the P-II, and see what happens.

 

[Wolverine]

Ordered a new stock dizzy and Pertronix II module, and have both in hand. Now, I'll disconnect the Tach to ensure I don't fry it before I figure out how to wire it correctly. Then drop in the new dizzy and install the P-II, and see what happens.

Before wiring the tach, post the diagram you are going to use to wire it and the pertronix ignition in.

However, I would suspect if you get your car to run without the tach, you will be able to wire it back in without any issues.

 

[73vertproject]

However, I would suspect if you get your car to run without the tach, you will be able to wire it back in without any issues.

Aaaaaahhhhh, that's right. People who've fried their tachs often suffer from poor engine performance or not running at all. The tach runs in series, so if I unplug it, no juice to tach, and maybe no juice to coil... :huh:

Spent a bit of time Googling "Install Pertronix II with factory tach" and read several posts about it. Will have to look at them again...

More later....

 

[c9zx]

The car will not run with the factory tach disconnected, unless you make and install a jumper connection. Chuck

 

[73vertproject]

The car will not run with the factory tach disconnected, unless you make and install a jumper connection. Chuck

Thanks, Chuck. That's what I figured. Gotta put together the jumper wire - Utard's system is awesome, but I just want to get the car running properly, and THEN invest time in cool stuff like he described. I think I just need to run 12V from the battery to the "start" position on the ignition switch, then run it to the tach. If memory serves correctly, that is. Back to the Google...

 

[Wolverine]

For what it is worth, here is what the back of your tach looks like:

The tach has it's own 2 wire plug, as seen near the top left of the photo.

It is a bear to get apart from it's counterpart unless you know a way to get 2 hands behind the dash...I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

But this should help you find the wire people generally tap into for powering the Pertronix module. Don't tap into the wire you see here, tap into the wire that connects to this wire.

I believe we were able to pull the connector apart, slide a wire into the female pin, then squeeze the 2 connectors back together instead of cutting the wire. But, they have very nice wire taps where you don't even have to cut the wire:

Available at any Home Depot. Just need to know the wire gage...think it is 12 or 14, and get a pair of pliers to squeeze the tap. Then tape it up to keep the cover secure.

 

[Utard]

Hey Doc,

You're right in that the car won't start if the tach isn't hooked up. I figured the same thing as you, better safe than sorry, but it wouldn't fire up. I hooked the tach back up to the coil and it fired right up. And holy crap what a difference! The Mach is running better than it ever did.

You can't go right to the battery because you need power when the key is on, and the battery is always on. I didn't really want to cut into the harness under the dash or wire all the way back to there, but I just didn't like my options if I didn't. I also had plans for the headlights and a stereo upgrade so it made sense to do a bunch more work wiring in my case.

I think you can jump into a switched wire elsewhere if you have one available, but you have to be careful to protect the Pertronix so you would need an inline fuse and you need to be sure that you are getting 12 volts. I put a 2 amp fuse on mine and its working just fine. Wolverine had posted something about the module only pulls 1.5 amps, and I read something else somewhere that agreed with him.

You should have a white wire with a black stripe that is right by the distributor that goes to the electric choke. You could probably tie into that circuit as long as you fuse it. In my car it had 12 volts and came on with the switch. I didn't use it because I didn't want to see a fuse holder right there. The other consideration is how many other things might be on that circuit?

A safer way would be to wire in a relay. If you want to keep it all under the hood, you can pull the power off of the battery and use the starter solenoid to trip it. My solenoid didn't have 12 volts as I assume yours might not either, but it is switched and a relay only needs miliamps to trip it. Had I not done all the wiring I did, I was going to mount 3 relays on the drivers side shock tower behind the washer fluid reservoir, 2 for the headlights and 1 for the distributor. That was a perfect location as there's plenty of room, its right next to the loom that holds the headlight wires and its pretty well hidden from view. You would need to pull 2 wires to the relay pack, one from the the battery terminal and one from the switched power on the starter solenoid. The power jumps from one relay into the next, so you could do 1 relay or 10, and you still just need 2 wires, or 3 if you can't find a suitable ground and want to ground to the battery. From there you just need to wire over to the distributor, of course putting a fuse inline somewhere between.

If you haven't rewired your headlights through relays I would highly suggest the relay method. It sounds more complicated maybe than it really is, and relays are super cheap. It's worth it to get all that current out of the headlight switch, and wiring 3 relays is just about as easy as wiring 1. If that's the route you choose to go, I'm more than happy to help walk you through it.

Good luck!

scott

 

[73vertproject]

Thanks, Scott. I may go that direction once I get the engine running properly and a couple other issues addressed. I'll give you a shout when I'm ready - thanks for the offer!

 

[mustbrad]

mine Pertronix 1 runs right off the coil (MSD Blaster 2)with the tach hooked up to the same post, super conductor wires, no jumpy tach, runs great, fires right up if driving regularly, if not pump gas a few times and off it goes. I use the adapter for the wide cap to help with the dreaded Cleveland crossfire

 

[73vertproject]

mine Pertronix 1 runs right off the coil (MSD Blaster 2)with the tach hooked up to the same post, super conductor wires, no jumpy tach, runs great, fires right up if driving regularly, if not pump gas a few times and off it goes. I use the adapter for the wide cap to help with the dreaded Cleveland crossfire

That matches everything I've read - the Pert1 can be wired straight to the coil and won't affect the Tach.

Therefore, I went down to NAPA and bought an OEM dizzy (they had one in Sacramento) which arrived yesterday. The points and condenser are already in it, and I'll let the builder focus on timing and tuning and not worry about frying the tach. Once the car is timed and tuned for the first time, and I can finally put 200 or so break-in miles on the engine, I'll worry about keeping gas in it, keeping the proper amount of tread on the rear tires, and keeping enough money in the checking account to pay for obligatory Mr. Law tickets....

I'll keep the Pertronix II components on the back burner and update this Pertronix II thread after I finish the above activities.

 

[Jim and Jutta]

mine Pertronix 1 runs right off the coil (MSD Blaster 2)with the tach hooked up to the same post, super conductor wires, no jumpy tach, runs great, fires right up if driving regularly, if not pump gas a few times and off it goes. I use the adapter for the wide cap to help with the dreaded Cleveland crossfire

That matches everything I've read - the Pert1 can be wired straight to the coil and won't affect the Tach.

Therefore, I went down to NAPA and bought an OEM dizzy (they had one in Sacramento) which arrived yesterday. The points and condenser are already in it, and I'll let the builder focus on timing and tuning and not worry about frying the tach. Once the car is timed and tuned for the first time, and I can finally put 200 or so break-in miles on the engine, I'll worry about keeping gas in it, keeping the proper amount of tread on the rear tires, and keeping enough money in the checking account to pay for obligatory Mr. Law tickets....

I'll keep the Pertronix II components on the back burner and update this Pertronix II thread after I finish the above activities.

It sure sounds like less of a headache going the ignitor l unless you absolutely have to have the adapative dwell of the ll or the rev limiter of the lll. Petronix reports that the l operates on 8-16V.

 

[73vertproject]

mine Pertronix 1 runs right off the coil (MSD Blaster 2)with the tach hooked up to the same post, super conductor wires, no jumpy tach, runs great, fires right up if driving regularly, if not pump gas a few times and off it goes. I use the adapter for the wide cap to help with the dreaded Cleveland crossfire

That matches everything I've read - the Pert1 can be wired straight to the coil and won't affect the Tach.

Therefore, I went down to NAPA and bought an OEM dizzy (they had one in Sacramento) which arrived yesterday. The points and condenser are already in it, and I'll let the builder focus on timing and tuning and not worry about frying the tach. Once the car is timed and tuned for the first time, and I can finally put 200 or so break-in miles on the engine, I'll worry about keeping gas in it, keeping the proper amount of tread on the rear tires, and keeping enough money in the checking account to pay for obligatory Mr. Law tickets....

I'll keep the Pertronix II components on the back burner and update this Pertronix II thread after I finish the above activities.

It sure sounds like less of a headache going the ignitor l unless you absolutely have to have the adapative dwell of the ll or the rev limiter of the lll. Petronix reports that the l operates on 8-16V.

I agree 100%, Jim. I won't need a rev limiter that the PIII provides, and probably not the increased firepower of the PII. From what I've read, the PI would provide everything I need. So that will be the next chapter.

 

[Jim and Jutta]

Another thing that has confused me is the discussion of the Pertronix Ignitor damaging our Tachs if we use the restrictor wire coming from the tach rather than a dedicated 12V wire. The way I understand it the restrictor wire gives a full 12V upon start up then cuts back to around 8V to avoid damaging the points, since the Ignitor ll and lll need a continous 12V they won't function correctly with the reduced 8V current, but how would that damage the Tach?

 

[TheRktmn]

The coil receives 12V at start-up by way of the "I" terminal on the starter solenoid. Once the key is released to 'Run' the solenoid deactivates and the "I" terminal is not powered anymore. It does receive app 8V back-feed through the circuit though.

The tach does get 12V in from the ignition switch but the resistor wire reduces that to app 8V. That 8V goes to the coil. Using the 8V to power a Petronix I won't hurt the tach, but removing the resistor wire and running 12V through the tach to power a Petronix II or Petronix III will cause the tach to read wrong and will hasten component failure.